Gnomes collect names the way other people collect buttons. In D&D a gnome gets a name from their mother, their father, a clan elder and assorted aunts and uncles, plus nicknames from everyone else, and ends up with half a dozen or more. With outsiders they settle on three. This gnome name generator gives you those three: a personal name, a clan name and a nickname, like Fizwick “Ticktock” Spindleworth.
Why gnomes have so many names
The fifth-edition Player's Handbook (2014) says gnomes love names. Each relative gives a newborn gnome a name, usually a variation on the name of an ancestor or distant relative, though some are brand new inventions. Nicknames from everyone else may or may not stick.
Other peoples find this exhausting, so when dealing with humans and others who are "stuffy" about names, a gnome uses no more than three: a personal name, a clan name and a nickname, picking the one in each category that is the most fun to say. That last rule is the best guide to a good gnome name.
What gnome names sound like
- Personal names bounce. Doubled consonants and light endings: -bble, -wick, -bin, -bel, -mip. Say Tibble, Lillibee or Quibbin and it's hard not to smile.
- Clan names sound like a family workshop: Copperkettle, Spindleworth, Tinkerton. Rock gnomes, D&D's tinkerers, suit the clockwork-sounding ones; forest gnomes suit Mossworth or Jinglebrook.
- Nicknames are short and earned: Kaboom, Sootface, Twofingers. For a rock gnome inventor, the nickname is often a warning.
All the names here are new, built from those sounds rather than copied from the Player's Handbook.
Giving your gnome more names
The three-name format is the polite version. At the table it's fun to let the rest slip out:
- Give the full list once. When the gnome first introduces themselves to someone important, let them rattle off six names, then say "but you can call me Pemble."
- Change the nickname. Nicknames come and go. A gnome who blew up the party's cart can arrive at the next town as "Kaboom".
- Ask who gave which name. A name from a disapproving aunt is a story in itself.
Press Generate a few times with "Personal name only" to collect a whole family's worth of names.