Samurai Name Generator

How samurai names were built

Japanese names put the family name first, so a person is written Takagi Tadanori, not Tadanori Takagi. The family name marked the house; given names were built from a few meaningful elements, and a son often shared one with his father or his lord. Men's names commonly ended in -nori, -masa, -tsugu or -mitsu, and later sons often took names that counted the order of birth, such as Taro, Jiro and Saburo. Women of samurai families usually had short names such as Hana, Kiku and Chiyo. This generator writes names in Japanese order, and adds a province, a castle or the title the Masterless when a character has left a lord.

Writing Japanese names with care

Choose an era first, because naming habits changed between the warring centuries and the long peace that followed. Keep one order in your whole book, Japanese order or Western order, and do not switch between them. Use honorifics deliberately: -sama for a person of high rank, -dono for a lord or respected equal, -san for general politeness. Remember that samurai were also administrators, scribes, poets and farmers' sons, so not every character needs a famous sword. For a real period, check your choice against a historical source, and treat the great clans with the respect due to real families.

Twenty example samurai names

• Takagi Tadanori a steward who keeps the castle accounts and its secrets.
• Ishikawa Masatsugu a veteran archer with a stiff shoulder and a long memory.
• Kimura Jiro a second son sent to serve a distant lord.
• Hayashi Genbei a spear instructor whose students outnumber his enemies.
• Sakai Hisamune of Mino a retainer who guards a mountain pass.
• Matsuda Hana a samurai daughter trained with the naginata.
• Okada Chiyo a widow who runs her late husband's household.
• Shimizu Kimiko of Tosa a courier for her family's letters.
• Lord Aoki Naganori of Mino a cautious domain lord who avoids unnecessary war.
• Lady Kuroda Harue of Hizen a lady who manages the domain while her husband travels.
• Ito Yasumasa, Lord of Kumoyama a lord who loves tea more than politics.
• Nakano Sanetsugu the Masterless a ronin who left after his lord's fall.
• Fukuda Tomonobu the Masterless of Harima a masterless swordsman who teaches for rice.
• Yamada Saburo a third son who learned to listen.
• Ueda Katsuzo a gatekeeper who watches everyone and says nothing.
• Kondo Hotaru a woman of the household with a quiet role in the plot.
• Sasaki Yoshihisa a magistrate who values order more than mercy.
• Mizuno Tane the Masterless of Kai a former retainer who sells medicines on the road.
• Hirano Genzo of Echizen a patient castle carpenter who builds traps.
• Noguchi Sumi a maid of rank who keeps a record of every visitor.

Station: retainer, lord and masterless

The station filter changes the shape of the name. A retainer has a family name and a given name, with an optional province to place the household. A lord or lady carries a title and the name of a domain or a castle, which says who answers to them. A masterless warrior is written as the Masterless, often with the province that he left, which tells the reader that he lost something.

Use the stations to build a cast. A lord gives the story a place to centre on, retainers give it people with duties, and a ronin gives it someone who is free of both. The same family name can sit on several stations: a cousin can be a retainer, and a disgraced son can be masterless.

Avoiding caricature

Japanese names in fiction are often reduced to one fierce sound and a title. Real samurai names were ordinary names, shared with farmers and townspeople, and many of the people who held the title lived quiet administrative lives. Give your characters motives, flaws and family ties, and let their names be the least dramatic part of them.

If your story draws on a real province or a real clan, read about it. The choice of a family name, a rank and a place to which a character belongs is a statement about history, and readers who know that history will notice a careless one.