Renaissance Last Name Generator

Real surnames of Europe from 1400 to 1650

Real-World Names & CulturesPart of: last names by country and culture Part of: real-world name generators500 namesUpdated Sep 2026Free · no sign-up

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Browse 500 Renaissance surnames borne in Europe between about 1400 and 1650, from Florentine and Venetian families like Rucellai, Tornabuoni and Contarini to Walsingham, Throckmorton, de Coligny, Fugger, Pirckheimer, Zúñiga and Plantin.

About Renaissance last names

By 1400 many of the wealthy families of Europe's cities had fixed surnames, and those names carry the period. Florence gives Rucellai, Tornabuoni, Strozzi, Capponi and della Robbia, Venice gives Contarini, Mocenigo and Loredan, and Genoa gives Spinola and Fieschi. North of the Alps the merchant houses of Augsburg and Nuremberg were called Fugger, Welser, Tucher and Pirckheimer. England adds the court and the playhouse, from Walsingham, Throckmorton and Cecil to Marlowe, Dekker and Burbage, and France adds de Coligny, de Montmorency, Rabelais and Estienne.

Not everyone had such a name. Many ordinary people of the 1400s, in Italy above all, went by a patronymic or by the place they came from, which is why workshop nicknames and place bynames are left out: you will find Buonarroti and Vecellio here, but not da Vinci or Tintoretto. Scholars sometimes took a Latin or Greek form of their name, and a few of those adopted names that were used as family names are included, such as Melanchthon, Agricola and Mercator.

Particles are written the way each language writes them: de' and della in Italian, de in French and Spanish, von in German, van in Dutch. The list also reaches Spain and Portugal (Zúñiga, de Magalhães), the Low Countries (Plantin, Huygens) and, in a smaller set, Poland, Bohemia and Hungary.

How to choose Renaissance last names

Match the surname to the city. A Florentine banker can be a Rucellai or a Capponi, a Venetian senator a Contarini or a Morosini, a Nuremberg merchant a Tucher or an Imhoff.
Keep the particle with the name and in lower case: de' Medici, della Rovere, de Coligny, von Hutten, van der Weyden.
For ordinary townspeople and peasants of the 1400s, above all in Italy, use a given name with a father's name or a place instead of a surname. That is how many of them were recorded.
Pair the surname with a given name of the same language and period: Ginevra or Bartolomeo with a Florentine surname, Barbara or Jörg with a German one, Thomasine or Humphrey with an English one.
Famous surnames bring their history with them. For a family of your own invention, pick one of the less known merchant, printer or gentry names, such as Sassetti, Koberger or Stonor.

Frequently asked questions

What are some Renaissance last names?

From Italy, Rucellai, Tornabuoni, Strozzi, Contarini and Spinola. From England, Walsingham, Throckmorton, Sackville and Hathaway. From the rest of Europe, de Coligny, Fugger, Pirckheimer, Zúñiga, Plantin and Huygens. All of them were borne between about 1400 and 1650, and all are in this list.

Did everyone in the Renaissance have a last name?

No. Noble, merchant and gentry families had fixed surnames, and in England most people had a hereditary surname by this time. In Italy above all, many ordinary people of the 1400s were recorded with a father's name or a place of origin, and an artist might be known by a workshop nickname. Those bynames are not surnames, so they are not in the list.

Why are some of the names in Latin or Greek?

Humanist scholars liked to turn their names into a classical language. Melanchthon, Agricola, Mercator, Ortelius and Vesalius are adopted forms of this kind that were then used as family names. They are a small part of the list.

Can I use these surnames for a story or a game?

Yes, that is what the list is for. Many of these families are well documented, so a character called de' Medici or Tudor will be read as a member of that house. The less known names, such as Sassetti, Imhoff, Stonor or Maluenda, leave you more room.

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All 500 Renaissance last names

This is the complete list the generator above draws its random batches from, sorted A to Z and grouped by first letter.

Plain text, one name per line.

A: 20 names

Acciaiuoli
Adorno
Agricola
Alberti
Aldobrandini
Aldrovandi
Alleyn
Altdorfer
Altoviti
Amati
Amman
Amyot
Androuet
Ango
Anguissola
Antinori
Arden
Ariosto
Arnolfini
Ascham

B: 45 names

Babington
Bacon
Baglioni
Balassi
Baldung
Barbarigo
Barbaro
Barberini
Barbieri
Báthory
Beaumont
Behaim
Beham
Bellini
Bembo
Bentivoglio
Bernini
Bethlen
Bicker
Blaeu
Bocskai
Bodin
Bodley
Boiardo
Boleyn
Borghese
Borgia
Borromeo
Bracciolini
Bragadin
Brant
Briçonnet
Bruegel
Brunelleschi
Bucer
Buchanan
Budé
Bullant
Bullinger
Buonarroti
Buondelmonti
Burbage
Burckhardt
Burgkmair
Byrd

C: 46 names

Caboto
Cabral
Calderón
Camden
Campanella
Campion
Capper
Capponi
Caracciolo
Carafa
Cardano
Carey
Carpaccio
Carracci
Cartier
Castiglione
Catesby
Cavalcanti
Cavendish
Caxton
Cecil
Cellini
Centurione
Cervantes
Champlain
Charpentier
Chigi
Chodkiewicz
Cisneros
Clopton
Clouet
Colet
Colleoni
Collier
Colombo
Colonna
Contarini
Cornaro
Corsini
Corte-Real
Cortés
Cœur
Coutinho
Cranmer
Cromwell
Cybo

D: 90 names

d'Amboise
d'Aubigné
d'Avalos
d'Este
d'Estrées
da Gama
da Verrazzano
Dandolo
Datini
Davanzati
de Albuquerque
de Alvarado
de Barros
de Bazán
de Béthune
de Bèze
de Borja
de Bragança
de Brézé
de Camões
de Coligny
de Commynes
de Cossé
de Croÿ
de Fonseca
de Geer
de Góis
de Góngora
de Graeff
de Gramont
de Groot
de Herrera
de Joyeuse
de L'Hospital
de La Boétie
de la Cerda
de la Cosa
de La Marck
de La Rochefoucauld
de La Trémoille
de la Vega
de las Casas
de Lorraine
de los Cobos
de Loyola

D, continued

de Magalhães
de Meneses
de Monluc
de Montmorency
de Mornay
de Orellana
de Padilla
de Quevedo
de Requesens
de Ribera
de Rohan
de Rojas
de Ronsard
de Sandoval
de Silva
de Soto
de Thou
de Valdivia
de Victoria
de Witt
de Zurbarán
de' Bardi
de' Benci
de' Medici
de' Pazzi
degli Albizzi
Dekker
della Casa
della Porta
della Robbia
della Rovere
Delorme
Devereux
Dias
Długosz
Dobó
Dolet
Donne
Doria
Dowland
Drake
du Bellay
Dudley
Duprat
Dürer

E: 7 names

Egerton
Elcano
Elzevir
Enríquez
Escher
Estienne
Eyquem

F: 20 names

Fabbri
Farel
Farnese
Ferrari
Ficino
Fieschi
Firlej
Fontana
Fortescue
Foscari
Foscarini
Fouquet
Fregoso
Frescobaldi
Froben
Frobisher
Froschauer
Fuchs
Fugger
Fust

G: 28 names

Gabrieli
Galilei
Garamond
Garnier
Gascoigne
Gentileschi
Gessner
Gesualdo
Ghiberti
Gianfigliazzi
Gibbons
Ginori
Girdler
Giustiniani
Goldschmidt
Goltzius
Gondi
Gonzaga
Górnicki
Goujon
Grenville
Gresham
Greville
Grimaldi
Grimani
Gritti
Guicciardini
Guzmán

H: 24 names

Hakluyt
Haller
Hals
Harant
Harington
Harriot
Hathaway
Hatton
Hawkins
Henslowe
Herrick
Heywood
Hilliard
Holbein
Holinshed
Hollar
Hondius
Hooft
Horner
Hosier
Hotman
Howard
Hunyadi
Huygens

I: 2 names

Imhoff
Iselin

J: 5 names

Jaggard
Jamnitzer
Janequin
Jonson
Jordaens

K: 8 names

Kepler
Knollys
Knox
Koberger
Kochanowski
Komenský
Kopernik
Kyd

L: 10 names

Łaski
Lefèvre
Lescot
Linacre
Lippi
Lipsius
Lomellini
Loredan
Luther
Lyly

M: 26 names

Machiavelli
Malatesta
Maluenda
Manrique
Mantegna
Manuzio
Marlowe
Marot
Martelli
Mascarenhas
Melanchthon
Memling
Mendoza
Mercator
Mercier
Merian
Merisi
Metsys
Middleton
Mocenigo
Monteverdi
More
Moretus
Morosini
Müntzer
Murillo

N: 2 names

Nashe
Neville

O: 4 names

Obrecht
Ockeghem
Orsini
Ortelius

P: 33 names

Pacheco
Palissy
Pallavicino
Pandolfini
Paré
Pargeter
Parr
Pasquier
Paston
Pencz
Percy
Petre
Petri
Petrucci
Peutinger
Pfyffer
Piccolomini
Pico
Pigafetta
Pinzón
Pirckheimer
Pisani
Pithou
Pitti
Pizarro
Plantin
Platter
Portinari
Portocarrero
Poulter
Priuli
Pucci
Pulci

Q: 1 name

Quiney

R: 15 names

Rabelais
Radcliffe
Radziwiłł
Raleigh
Ramusio
Rej
Reuchlin
Ridley
Ridolfi
Riemenschneider
Rinuccini
Rolin
Rubens
Rucellai
Russell

S: 43 names

Sachs
Sackville
Salter
Salviati
Sannazaro
Sanseverino
Sanudo
Sarpi
Sartori
Sassetti
Savile
Savonarola
Scève
Schedel
Scheurl
Schiner
Schöffer
Schongauer
Schumacher
Schütz
Séguier
Selden
Seymour
Sforza
Shakespeare
Sidney
Škréta
Slavata
Šlik
Smiřický
Soderini
Spenser
Spinola
Spurrier
Stanhope
Stanley
Stevin
Stockalper
Stonor
Stoss
Stow
Strozzi
Sweelinck

T: 19 names

Talbot
Tallis
Tarnowski
Tasman
Tasso
Taverner
Tetzel
Throckmorton
Thurzó
Tiepolo
Tornabuoni
Tory
Tresham
Trivulzio
Tromp
Tschudi
Tucher
Tudor
Tyndale

U: 1 name

Usodimare

V: 33 names

Valla
van Brederode
van der Weyden
van Dyck
van Goyen
van Mander
van Oldenbarnevelt
van Orley
van Rijn
van Ruisdael
Vasari
Vecellio
Velasco
Velázquez
Vendramin
Venier
Verney
Vesalius
Vespucci
Vettori
Viète
Vintner
Vischer
Visconti
Vives
von Berlichingen
von Diesbach
von Erlach
von Frundsberg
von Hohenzollern
von Hutten
von Mansfeld
von Sickingen

W: 12 names

Waldmann
Waldseemüller
Walsingham
Welser
Werdmüller
Wettstein
Willaert
Wolsey
Woodville
Wotton
Wriothesley
Wyatt

Z: 6 names

Zamoyski
Zimmermann
Żółkiewski
Zrínyi
Zúñiga
Zwingli

This or that?

About Renaissance last names

How to choose Renaissance last names

Frequently asked questions

What are some Renaissance last names?

Did everyone in the Renaissance have a last name?

Why are some of the names in Latin or Greek?

Can I use these surnames for a story or a game?

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