Romanian Last Name Generator

Browse 500 real Romanian surnames, from -escu classics like Popescu and Ionescu to regional names like Moldoveanu, trade names like Ciobanu and Croitoru, and short ones like Popa and Radu. Diacritics are kept.

About Romanian last names

The ending most people know is -escu. It began as a patronymic, so Ionescu is the family of Ion, Petrescu the family of Petre, and Popescu the family of the popă, the village priest. When fixed surnames became a legal requirement in the nineteenth century, many families in Wallachia and Moldavia took an -escu name, so the list has many of them.

The second big family says where someone came from. Moldoveanu, Olteanu, Ardeleanu and Dobrogeanu name a region, Craioveanu and Brăileanu a town. In Transylvania the same names usually drop the last vowel, giving Moldovan, Ardelean, Mureșan and Crișan, beside names borrowed from Hungarian such as Fărcaș, Sabău and Suciu. Trade names come third: Ciobanu is the shepherd, Croitoru the tailor, Moraru the miller, Olaru the potter, Rotaru the wheelwright. Their final -u is a leftover of the old definite article.

The rest of the list is given names used as surnames (Radu, Stan, Dumitru, Tudor), pet forms in -ache, -iță, -oiu and -ea, bynames from animals, plants and looks (Lupu, Busuioc, Lungu), names of peoples (Rusu, Grecu, Sârbu) and a few Slavic -ovici names. A Romanian surname does not change for a woman. The letters ă, â, î, ș and ț are kept, because Stănescu and Stanescu are not the same spelling to a Romanian reader.

How to choose Romanian last names

• Let the ending place your character. An -escu name fits Bucharest and the south, the short -an forms (Moldovan, Mureșan, Pop) point to Transylvania, and -oiu names such as Vlădoiu and Predoiu are often linked with Oltenia.
• Keep the diacritics if your software allows it. If you have to drop them, drop all of them the way many Romanians abroad do (Stanescu, Tanase, Serban) instead of mixing both styles.
• On forms, school registers and official lists Romanians often write the family name first, so Popescu Ion and Ion Popescu are the same man. In conversation and in fiction the given name comes first.
• Hyphenated double surnames are normal in Romania, often after marriage. Joining two entries, for example Ionescu-Munteanu, gives a name that reads as modern and slightly formal.
• If the name is for a real person, a business or a published book, search it yourself first. Most of these surnames belong to many living families.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most common Romanian last names?

Popa and Popescu, both built on the word for a priest, are among the most common surnames in the country. Other names you meet everywhere are Pop, Radu, Dumitru, Stan, Stoica, Gheorghe, Matei, Ciobanu, Ionescu, Rusu and Munteanu. All of them are in this list.

What does -escu mean in a Romanian surname?

It marks belonging to a person or a family, so it works much like "son of" or "of the house of". Georgescu goes back to a George, Diaconescu to a deacon and Constantinescu to a Constantin. The ending comes from Latin and has relatives in other Romance languages, such as the Italian -esco.

How do you pronounce ș, ț, ă and â?

The letter ș sounds like English sh and ț like ts, so Șerban starts like "share" and Țurcanu starts with ts. The letter ă is the relaxed vowel at the end of "sofa". The letters â and î stand for one and the same sound, a vowel made further back in the mouth that English does not have.

Why do some surnames appear with both â and î?

A spelling reform in 1993 brought back â inside words, but a family name is a legal name and many families kept the older î. That is why you can meet both Pârvu and Pîrvu, Cârstea and Cîrstea, or Bârsan and Bîrsan. The pronunciation is identical.

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All 500 Romanian last names