Persian Name Generator

The Persian Name Generator gives you 1 to 10 random Iranian first names, each with its meaning, from a list of 737 names. Pick a gender (boy, girl or unisex) or leave it on Random to draw from the whole list. Every result shows the name in capitalized Latin spelling with a one-line meaning underneath and a copy button, so it works as a quick reference as much as a random picker: useful for naming a character in a story set in Tehran, filling in a believable name on a form, or looking up what a name you've heard actually means.

What's in the list

The 737 names break down as 381 boy names, 340 girl names and 16 marked unisex. They are first names only; there are no surnames, so if you need a full name you'll want to pair a result with a family name from elsewhere. Spellings are the common Latin transliterations you see on passports and in the diaspora rather than Persian script, which means some names appear in two spellings (Aftab and Aftaab, Mehri and Mehry) because both are in real use.

Culturally the list reflects how people in Iran are actually named, which is a blend of three sources:

• Old Persian and Shahnameh names: Dariush (Wise King), Kourosh (the Persian form of Cyrus), Roxana (Bright, Shining), Anahita, Arash, Kaveh, Rostam. These are the names most people mean when they search for "ancient Persian names."
• Nature and virtue names in modern Persian: Nasrin (jonquil flower), Simin (made of silver), Aftab (sunshine), Mehri (kind, from mehr), Milad (birth), Leila (night).
• Arabic-origin names common in Iran: the Abdal- names (Abdalhakim, Abdalhamid), Masih, and many Islamic names that have been used by Persian speakers for centuries.

There is no filter to separate those groups. If you want strictly pre-Islamic or Zoroastrian names, generate a larger batch and pick the ones with Avestan or Shahnameh roots; the meaning line usually makes the origin obvious.

The three controls

• Number of names: 1 to 10 per click. The default is 3.
• Gender: Random (no filter), Boy, Girl or Unisex. Unisex is a small pool of 16, so at 10 names you'll see most of it in one go.
• Copy: each card has a copy icon that puts just the name on your clipboard, not the meaning.

How Persian names are built

A few conventions help when you're choosing from the results or building a full name around one. Persian names are often nouns or adjectives used as-is: Nasrin is literally the flower, Aftab is literally sunshine. Many girl names end in -eh or -a (Afshaneh, Parisa, Roxana) and many boy names end in a consonant or in -ush, -ash or -ad (Dariush, Arash, Farhad). Compound names are common too, built from words like mehr (sun, love), shah (king), gol (flower) and khosh (good): Mehrdad, Golnaz, Khoshru. Iranian surnames typically add a suffix to a given name, place or trade: -i (Ahmadi, Tehrani), -zadeh "born of" (Alizadeh), -pour "son of" (Mehrpour) and -nia. The generator doesn't produce those, but the Random Last Name Generator can supply a surname if you only need something plausible rather than specifically Iranian.

If you're comparing naming traditions for a project, the German Name Generator and Austrian Name Generator work the same way with their own lists, and the Unisex Name Generator covers gender-neutral names across cultures. All of them are gathered under all name generators.

Sample results