Mummy Name Generator

Mummy names are, at heart, ancient Egyptian names, and the real thing is far stranger and richer than the movie version. Egyptian personal names were usually short sentences honoring a god: Tutankhamun means 'living image of Amun,' Ramesses means 'Ra has borne him,' Nefertari means 'the most beautiful,' and Ankhesenamun means 'she lives for Amun.' Kings also took throne names on coronation, so the pharaoh most people call Thutmose III was Menkheperre in official texts. Both layers are useful: the birth name for a character, the throne name for an inscription over a tomb door.

Horror mummies since Universal's 1932 film have followed the Imhotep model, a priest or noble who was buried alive for a forbidden love or heresy and rises when a seal is broken. That is why the best mummy characters are not only pharaohs but high priests, viziers, embalmers, and royal wives. Names like Herihor, Bakenkhonsu, Senenmut, and Khaemweset (a real prince who restored old monuments and was later remembered as a magician) carry more menace than a famous king because they suggest someone the histories tried to forget.

To push a name toward horror, add an epithet that describes the curse or the state of the body: the Unwrapped, the Sleepless, of the Broken Seal, the Wrapped Priest. Titles built from Egyptian religion (the Prophet of Anubis, the Keeper of the Canopic Jars) work well for tomb guardians in D&D and video games. All of the base names here are real and spelled the way Egyptologists spell them.