FantasyNames.io

Ghost Name Generator

A tall translucent ghost in a scorched tallow apron unfolds from a corner of a stone vat-house, fading to mist at the floor.
CCLXXVIII
Pale Dead of Old Rooms

Press Generate to draw a name.

Umbrifex tacitus

Danger
Size
7.5 ft
Activity
Seasonal

Name generator

Press Generate to draw a name.

Gender
Length

Kindred Arcana

Ghost names and their meanings

Select a name to copy it. Every name below is free to use.

Hollow Given

A soft, breathy given name worn down by many years of being said quietly.

Room Epithet

A short given name followed by the place where the dead one lingers.

Trade Name

A name built from the work the ghost still seems to be doing.

Worn Syllable

An old ghost's name ground down to one or two sounds that no one can fully spell.

Household Title

A formal rank held in life and kept after, attached to a long-faded family name.

How ghost names are made

Ghost names begin with the living person and are worn down by years of being said in low voices. The sound palette is soft and hollow: l, m, n, w and h, with long open vowels and the occasional breathy ending. Hard stops are rare and tend to sit in the middle of a name, where they can be swallowed. Most run two or three syllables. A name is usually a given name plus an epithet that ties the dead to a room, a trade or a habit, such as the thing they straighten, the stair they stand on or the season they return.

Sources are practical: the workshop, the cellar, the manner of leaving. Titles appear only when a household remembers rank. Names avoid anything bright, clipped or cheerful, and the true name of a ghost is often not spoken at all, so the epithet carries the weight. Old ghosts lose syllables over generations until a single worn sound remains, while recent ghosts keep their full names and surnames. Example shapes: soft given name plus the-room epithet; one worn syllable with a trade word; surname plus a seasonal tag.

The ghost: bestiary entry

Candle-dipping week in Moskarit comes when the last cider is barreled and the nights have grown long enough to sell light. Sadrin Voll has dipped tapers in the same stone vat-house for nineteen years, and she spends the week on her feet from the first rendering to the last hanging. She starts by skimming forty pounds of melted tallow, gray and rank until it clears. She skims toward herself, never away. Her forearms are pocked with small white burns, one for most years.

The ghost is already in the vat-house when she opens the north shutter on the first morning. It stands in the corner behind the drying rack, a long gray figure taller than the doorframe, its head bent under the rafters at an angle no neck would allow. It is not quite solid: the drying rack shows through its coat, and the hem fades to mist before it meets the floor. Its face is a smear with two pale places where eyes should be. The air around it holds the temperature of a cellar. It takes the lowest rod of the rack, turns it end for end, and sets it back, the way a person straightens a room they have straightened a thousand times. Then the corner is only a corner, and cold.

Dipping is slow. Wick, vat, lift, wait, and again, thirty passes for a candle fat enough to sell at the Brelluvan market two miles down the cart road. Sadrin eats her bread standing and keeps her back to the corner. By noon the pan nearest the rack has gone soft and glossy and will not set, however long it cools. Tallow near the ghost stays like butter until morning, and she pours it back into the kettle. The town holds that the ghost is the chandler who kept this vat-house before her. Whether it knows it is dead, or knows anything, I have no means of checking. Sadrin says it turns the rod the right way, which is more than her apprentice manages.

When she banks the kettle fire at the end of the day, it is back. It faces the finished candles hung in rows from the beam, and the wicks of the nearest row, unlit, all lean toward it like flames in a draft. It does not move. She leaves the shutter open and goes home. Locals give every apprentice the same instruction: keep the north shutter open all week, dip nothing left-handed in the vat-house, and carry the first candle of the season out the door before anyone lights it.

Classification
Incorporeal undead, place-bound spirit
Habitat
Workshops, cellars, and old stairwells
Danger
Low
Size
7.5 ft, stooped under rafters
Activity
Seasonal
Realm
Borderlands between hearth and grave
Binomial
Umbrifex tacitus
Diet
None; drains warmth from rooms
Temperament
Habitual, indifferent, quietly watchful

Questions about ghost names

How are ghost names formed?

Ghost names usually start from the living person: a given name worn soft by repetition, followed by an epithet tied to the room, trade or manner of lingering. The generator offers several styles, from bare hollow names to full household titles, so you can match a ghost that haunts one stair or a whole manor.

What sounds suit a ghost name?

Soft consonants such as l, m, n, w and h, paired with long open vowels, give names a hollow, breathy quality. Hard stops are rare and usually sit mid-name. Most names run two or three syllables. The sound should seem like something said quietly in a cold room, then half forgotten by the speaker.

Why do ghost names include trades and rooms?

A ghost is bound to a place and a habit, so the name often records both. A chandler's ghost might carry a word for wax or a rack, and a stair ghost takes the stair. The epithet tells a listener where the dead one stands and what it keeps doing.

Can I use these ghost names freely?

Yes. Every name the generator produces can be used freely in any creative work, including novels, games, tabletop campaigns, films and songs. No attribution is needed. You can change spellings, combine names or build a whole haunted household from them, and nothing needs to be credited back to this site.