A good assassin's name doesn't announce itself. The best codenames sound ordinary, even gentle, until you know what they mean. This assassin name generator gives you codenames, quiet titles, fantasy aliases for rogues, and full names with an alias for the character who has a life outside the work.
Where the word comes from
Assassin comes, by way of the Crusaders, from the name given to the Nizari Ismailis of Persia and Syria, an order whose agents killed powerful enemies in the 11th to 13th centuries. Their enemies called them hashishiyya; the old story that this meant they used hashish is probably an insult rather than a fact.
Assassin's Creed borrowed the order and its fortress, Alamut, for its first game.
How fictional assassins are named
- An animal codename. Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal made the one-word animal codename the classic. The shrike, which the generator offers, is the "butcher bird" that spikes its prey on thorns.
- A number. Hitman's Agent 47 has only a number, which says everything about him.
- A fairy-tale title. In John Wick, the hero is called Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore. A title that's spoken quietly is scarier than a name.
- An ordinary job. The Gardener, the Tailor, the Clockmaker: a codename that sounds like a trade is easy to say in public.
Naming your assassin
- Say it in a tavern. If people would turn round, it's too much. Wren passes; Deathblade doesn't.
- Give them a real name too. The gap between Mara Voss and "the Needle" is where the character lives.
- Let the codename hint at the method. A Needle is precise; a Widow waits; a Lamplighter works at dusk.
- Need a guild? Try the Guild Name Generator for a thieves' or assassins' guild, or the Poison Name Generator for their tools.
An assassin needs more than one name: a codename for the job, an alias for daily life, and perhaps an assassin guild or organisation behind them. For that, try the Guild Name Generator.