Zombie Name Generator

Zombies mostly don't have names, which is exactly why the names people give them matter. In zombie fiction there are really four naming conventions. Survivors give nicknames to the walkers they keep seeing: "Half-Jaw," "Crawler Kate," "the Bloater by the gas station." Games name infected types by behaviour or sound: the Clicker and Bloater from The Last of Us, the Boomer, Spitter and Charger from Left 4 Dead, the Screamer, the Runner. Comedy zombies get puns and portmanteaus: Rigor Morris, Doug Graves, Rotney, Sir Bites-a-Lot. And the most unsettling option is the human name still on the name tag: "The Crossing Guard," "The Bride," "Zoe Deadman."

The named zombies people remember (Bub from Day of the Dead, Big Daddy from Land of the Dead, Tarman from Return of the Living Dead, R from Warm Bodies, Ed from Shaun of the Dead) all share one thing: the name is short and it hints at who they were before. That's the lesson. A good zombie name is either a survivor's blunt shorthand or an echo of a lost life.

Use the gruesome one-word names for hordes and minor threats, the type names for game design, the puns for Plants vs. Zombies-style comedy, and the job-title or human names when you want the reader to feel something.