Slytherin Name Generator

Slytherin names in the Harry Potter books carry the house's reputation in their sound. Where Hufflepuff gets Abbott and Smith, Slytherin gets Malfoy (from the French mal foi, bad faith), Lestrange, Nott, Avery, Mulciber, Rosier, Yaxley and Gaunt: surnames that are Norman-French, hard-edged, and usually attached to the Sacred Twenty-Eight pure-blood families. Given names follow two traditions. The Black family names its children after stars and constellations (Sirius, Regulus, Bellatrix, Andromeda, Draco, Arcturus, Cassiopeia, Pollux, Cygnus), and most other old families favour Latin or classical names like Lucius, Severus, Narcissa, Scorpius and Horace.

The newer canon keeps the pattern. Hogwarts Legacy adds Sebastian Sallow, Ominis Gaunt and Imelda Reyes; Hogwarts Mystery adds Merula Snyde, Barnaby Lee and Ismelda Murk. Notice that a Slytherin surname can be an ordinary word with a sharp or decaying edge (Flint, Sallow, Murk, Snyde, Crouch, Parkinson) just as easily as a grand one.

To build an original Slytherin, pair a classical or astronomical first name with a surname that is either a real minor English or French gentry name (Montague, Cavendish, Villiers) or an invented one built from stone, ash, ravens, cold or night. Double-barrelled surnames (Selwyn-Black, Flint-Rowle) suggest a marriage between two old houses.