Steampunk Name Generator

How steampunk names are built

Steampunk borrows its naming habits from the nineteenth century: titles, middle names, hyphenated family names and nicknames that stuck. Aristocrats collect long names and ranks. Inventors add professor, doctor or a mark of a learned society. Airship crews go by short names with a nickname from the sky, and mechanics from the foundry floor use a trade name or a tool. This generator provides all four trades, with the polish of a gaslit city and a few details that suit the machines: places such as a foundry, a hall or a wharf, and nicknames that point at a boiler, a gear or a gale.

Keeping the brass and the class consistent

Names are the quickest way to show class in a steampunk world. Give the upper ranks long polite names and a title, give the middle ranks a profession or a learned society, and give the workers short, plain names and a nickname. Then let the story cross the lines: a mechanic who knows more than her professor, or a lord who goes by a workshop nickname, says more about the world than a paragraph of description. Keep the technology in the names within reason, and limit puns on gears and steam to a few characters, or the cast will read as a joke. Choose spelling and titles once, and use them across your whole book.

Twenty example steampunk names

• Professor Ambrose Gearhart a lecturer whose experiments empty the hall.
• Doctor Cordelia Pennyfeather a surgeon who builds her own instruments.
• Madame Octavia Cogsworth, Tamer of Lightning a showwoman with a real invention.
• Engineer Gideon Lockhart a railway builder with a brave plan and a bad budget.
• Captain Silas Skye of the Brass Albatross a smuggler with a sense of humour.
• Hattie Finch, Navigator of the Silver Gull a precise navigator who hates fog.
• Windy Jack Kestrel a lookout who talks to every cloud.
• Lieutenant Genevieve Gale the airship's disciplined second-in-command.
• Lady Arabella Montgomery of Brasswick a patron of inventors who expects a return.
• Lord Cuthbert Villiers, Keeper of the Great Seal a cautious politician with a secret workshop.
• Baroness Sybil Devereux a dinner-table schemer.
• Duke Rupert Ashbourne owns half the foundries and none of the blame.
• Sparks Alfie Boiler a stoker with a quick wit and a safe pair of hands.
• Dolly 'Spanner' Hobbs a fitter who can repair anything with a spoon.
• Foreman Ned Anvil a kind but strict supervisor on the factory floor.
• Olive Arkwright of the Gear Cutters a guild member trying to organise a strike.
• Miss Prudence Waterhouse a clerk in the Patent Office who notices too much.
• Septimus Quillfeather, FRS a scholar who believes in an aether that others doubt.
• Tilly 'Cinder' Rooke a boiler-hand who dreams of flying.
• Master Percival Kingsley a master clockmaker who built the city's great clock.

Choosing a trade

The four trades set the voice of the name. Inventors carry a title and a mark of learning and often a boast, which fits people who need funding. Airship crews have names that are short, brisk and a little windblown, with a nickname and a ship. Aristocrats have titles, middle names and places that show land and rank. Mechanics have trade names, nicknames from tools and a foundry or a guild behind them.

Mix the trades in your cast. A story with an inventor and an aristocrat needs a mechanic who sees what the others miss, and an airship that belongs to nobody needs a crew who each have a reason to be aboard.

Victorian detail without cliché

The strongest steampunk names sound like real Victorian names with one added detail. A name like Hattie Finch is plain and believable, and the brass appears in her job. Avoid names made entirely of machine words, and give the machinery a place in the character's life instead of every syllable of the name.

If you want the period to show, check titles and forms of address. A baron is not called Lord Baron, a duke is Your Grace, and a doctor of medicine is addressed differently from a doctor of science. Readers who enjoy the period will notice when you get it right.