Totro, the Fantasy Random Name Generator

This is Totro, a random name generator for fantasy names (of characters, places, etc.). For more, click on "Generate More Names"!


You can use Totro on-line or off-line. To use it off-line, just select "File/Save As" in your browser and save this page to some file. Then, whenever you want to use Totro, just use your browser to view the saved file.

Totro creates a name from a random number of "syllables" (you can control the minimum and maximum number of syllables). Syllables are alternatively a random "consonant" or a random "vowel". Consonants and vowels may be single letters (such as "b" and "e"), or multiple letters (such as "ch" and "ee"). Some consonants and vowels aren't allowed to appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a name (for example, "str" isn't allowed at the end). This algorithm will occasionally return normal English words or names, but that doesn't happen very often. All of this work happens at the client end, so my server doesn't need to do a lot of work - it just serves a simple static file once. This program is based on an older program I wrote for the Apple II around 1982.

Totro was created by David A. Wheeler, and is implemented using Javascript (aka ECMAscript). Since there are many random name generators, I let this program create its own name - Totro. You can get the latest version of Totro from A Perl version by Chris X. Edwards, suitable for interactive command line use, is available at Chris X. Edwards also found an interesting use for this program -- naming physical containers. He has a lot of things stored in (physical) containers, which he numbered, but then found he'd used the same number twice. By using this program, he named each container, and found he could remember the names far more easily than the numbers.

Namelur (GPL license) is an implementation of Totro in C; its author intends to add many other features.

Totro is open source software / free software. That means that you can freely give Totro to anyone, and you can modify and redistribute modified versions of Totro to whoever you wish. Totro is Copyright (C) 2002-2006 David A. Wheeler, and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. Totro is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 3 or later.