Steampunk Name Generator

Steampunk names work by layering. Underneath is a genuinely Victorian given name, the kind that filled 1870s census pages and has since fallen out of use: Ignatius, Thaddeus, Araminta, Wilhelmina, Percival, Euphemia, Obadiah, Hepzibah. On top sits a surname that does one of two jobs. Either it is a real, slightly theatrical English surname of the period, such as Pemberton, Hallowell, Postlethwaite or Fotheringay, which grounds the character in a believable alternate 19th century, or it is an invented compound that quietly smuggles in the machinery: Cogsworth, Mainspring, Crankshaw, Lockspindle, Ferrocast. The best steampunk casts mix both so the mechanical names read as flavour rather than a gimmick.

Titles and nicknames carry the rest of the weight. The genre loves rank and credentials, so Captain, Commodore, Professor, Doctor, Lady and Inspector are not decoration but a shorthand for where someone stands in an airship crew or a learned society. At the other end of the social ladder, engine-room hands and street urchins go by epithets like Maggie "Gears" Pruett or Billy Soot. This list also steps outside London, with French, German, Russian and American-frontier names, because a world of airships is a world where the Aetherial Express stops in Marseille, Vienna and Saint Louis.