Pirate Last Name Generator

Generate pirate last names for captains, crews and tabletop characters: Golden Age surnames like Rackham, Hornigold and Bellamy, French, Dutch and Spanish sea names like Surcouf, De Graaf and Cofresí, rigging words like Halyard and Deadeye, and invented surnames like Blackmast and Saltbreaker.

About pirate last names

A pirate surname has two jobs: it should look at home on a ship's articles from about 1700, and it should read well next to a nickname. The real record is a good guide. Golden Age crews out of Nassau, Port Royal and Madagascar were largely English, Welsh, Irish and Scots seamen, so the core of this list is plain seafaring surnames from that record: Teach, Rackham, Vane, Hornigold, Bellamy, Tew, and Welsh names such as Morgan and Roberts. Around them sit Cornish names (Trelawney, Killigrew, Pellew), French corsair and Breton port names (Surcouf, Levasseur, Le Goff), Dutch privateer names (De Graaf, Heyn, Van Hoorn) and Spanish, Basque and Portuguese names (Cofresí, Bazán, Teixeira).

The rest is invention, and it comes in three kinds: rigging and gear words worn as surnames (Halyard, Deadeye, Capstan, Doubloon), shipboard trades and ship types (Gunner, Sawbones, Ketch, Snow), and dark compounds in the pulp manner (Blackmast, Saltbreaker, Ironkeel, Gallowsend). A last strand is ordinary old English surnames that happen to sound salty, such as Haddock, Rumbelow, Tredgold and Shotbolt.

Every entry is a single surname with no first name, title or nickname, so you can put your own in front. Plenty of real pirates sailed under an alias, a good excuse for a character to take a name from the invented half.

How to choose pirate last names

• Pair a plain surname with a loud nickname, or the other way round. Calico Jack works because Rackham is ordinary. Bloody Ned Blackmast is one flourish too many, where Ned Blackmast or Bloody Ned Tolliver is enough.
• Let the surname set the home port. Pengelly or Curnow says Cornwall, Llewellyn or Gethin says Wales, Le Bihan or Kermadec says Brittany, Brouwer or De Vries says the Dutch coast, and Echeverría or Zubiaur says the Basque ports.
• Famous surnames bring their owner along. Teach, Kidd, Morgan, Drake and Flint make a reader think of one man, so give them to a descendant, a namesake or an impostor trading on the name.
• Use the invented compounds as aliases. A sailor who signed the articles as Blackflag or Nineknots left his family name ashore, and why he did is a story hook in itself.
• Try it as a hail from another deck. Captain Hornigold carries across the water; if a name turns to mush when shouted, take a short one such as Vane, Tew, Flint or Pew.

Frequently asked questions

What are good pirate last names?

For a historical sound try Rackham, Hornigold, Bellamy, Vane, Tew or Culliford. For a fictional crew, Blackmast, Saltbreaker, Ironkeel, Halyard and Deadeye read as pirate at once, and Surcouf, De Graaf or Cofresí suit a French, Dutch or Spanish character.

Are these real surnames?

About two thirds are. The English, Welsh, Cornish, Irish, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese entries are real family names, many of them carried by pirates, privateers or naval officers between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The rigging words and compounds such as Powderburn, Nineknots and Hullbreaker are inventions, and a real surname on the list says nothing about any family that carries it today.

Did pirates really use false names?

Some did. Henry Every is recorded under the alias Bridgeman, and Blackbeard's own surname appears in period sources as both Teach and Thatch. A false surname shielded family at home and made a wanted man harder to trace, so an alias is a believable choice for a character.

How do I turn one of these into a full pirate name?

Add a period first name such as Ned, Israel, Bartholomew, Mary or Anne, then decide whether the character has earned a nickname. Israel Tolliver, Mary Penhallow and One-Eyed Bart Spragg all follow the pattern of first name, optional byname, plain surname. For ready-made full names with nicknames, use the pirate name generator instead.

Related generators

All 500 pirate last names