Poe Name Generator

Edgar Allan Poe chose names for their sound before their sense. He wanted the long, dying vowels of Lenore, Ulalume and Eulalie, the sonorous "o" and "r" he described in "The Philosophy of Composition" as the most melancholy sounds in English, and surnames with an air of decayed nobility: Usher, Montresor, Metzengerstein, Valdemar. Many of his heroines carry rare Latin or Greek names (Ligeia from a siren, Berenice, Morella, Eleonora), while his narrators are often nameless or hide behind a bare initial, which makes the few named men (Roderick, Fortunato, Prospero, C. Auguste Dupin) stand out sharply.

To write a name in Poe's manner, pair a Latinate or archaic first name with a short, dark-toned English or continental surname: Ambrose Vane, Lysander Fane, Cordelia Mourne, Isidore Quill. Avoid anything cheerful or modern; the whole effect depends on the reader hearing an old family, an old house, and probably an old curse. Poe also loved place and thing names that behave like character names, from the Plutonian shore and the dank tarn of Auber to the cask of Amontillado, and several of these are included here for taverns, ships, estates and pets.

The list combines every named figure from the major tales and poems, the women of Poe's own life (Virginia Clemm, Frances Allan, Sarah Helen Whitman), and newly composed names built on the same principles.