Press Generate to draw your first name.
Japan’s top three names for boys and girls, from Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance’s 2025 naming survey, alongside other names trending this year — rankings shift a little each year and vary between Japan’s several independent surveys.
A Japanese name is written surname-first, then given name — Yamada Tarō, not Tarō Yamada. Most names are written in kanji, characters borrowed from Chinese that each carry meaning, so parents often choose a name by combining two characters whose meanings they like: 大 (great) and 翔 (soar) becomes 大翔, Ōto.
Kanji usually have at least two kinds of reading: onyomi, closer to the original Chinese sound, and kunyomi, a native Japanese reading. A name’s pronunciation depends on which reading its parents picked, which is why the same characters can be read several different ways — and why name cards in Japan often carry small hiragana alongside the kanji as a pronunciation guide, exactly as this generator does.
Every name below is tagged with the idea its kanji lean on. Use these as a quick key while you browse the generator or your favorites list.
The Era filter buckets names by the period of Japanese history their style belongs to: Heian court names, Kamakura and Sengoku warrior names, the Edo shogunate, and everything from the Meiji restoration to today, which covers most names in everyday use. The Clan filter goes one level more specific, letting you fix the surname to one of five historical clans — Fujiwara and Minamoto and Taira from the Heian court, Sanada from the Sengoku wars, and Tokugawa, the shogunate that ruled the Edo period.
Yes — every entry is a name pattern genuinely used in Japan, built from kanji with documented meanings. Some of the “Fun / Pop” entries are written in katakana, which is how stylised, modern-sounding Japanese names are often rendered.
Because a reading like Haruka or Sora can be written with many different kanji combinations, each shifting the meaning slightly. This generator treats each kanji + reading pair as its own distinct name.
It maps your birth year to its animal in the twelve-year juunishi cycle (子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥), then draws a name from the theme that animal is traditionally associated with — the Ox with strength, the Rabbit with grace, and so on.
Locally in your browser only, grouped by category. Nothing is sent anywhere, and clearing your browser data will clear the list too.