Texan Name Generator

A Texan name has to sound like it came from somewhere specific, because Texas is really five or six places wearing one hat. East Texas and the Panhandle are Southern: Old Testament and frontier first names (Hollis, Clovis, Delbert, Earline) and double names that get used in full every time, so that Jo Nell is never just Jo and Billy Ray is never just Billy. South Texas and the Valley are Tejano, and surnames like Treviño, Cantu, Garza, Hinojosa, Anzaldua and Villarreal have been there since the Spanish land grants, long before Anglo settlement. The Hill Country and the Blackland Prairie were settled by Germans and Czechs, which is why a rancher outside Fredericksburg or West might be a Hoelscher, Zapalac, Kubena or Pfluger.

Nicknames are the other essential ingredient. Texans answer to Dub (for a W initial), Bubba, Hoss, Skeeter, Cotton, Stump, Tiny and Red for their whole lives, sometimes on ballots and headstones. Pair a nickname or a double first name with a surname from one of the regional traditions and you get a name that reads as Texan without a single cliché: Skeeter Lathrop, Hattie Mae Ragsdale, Ramiro Anzaldua, Lonnie Kallus.

The mix runs from oilfield and ranch country to Houston and the border towns, so you can place a character by name alone.