Scarecrows have been standing guard over British fields for centuries, and plenty of villages now hold scarecrow festivals every year. This scarecrow name generator makes friendly, folksy names like Old Tom Turnip and Mother Haybale, or creepy ones like the Hollow Man of Barley Rise.
Scarecrows in Britain
- Before scarecrows, farmers paid children to chase birds off the newly sown fields, shouting and banging clappers. They were called bird-scarers or crow-keepers, and the straw figure took over the job.
- The word scarecrow has been in English since the 1500s, and the name says exactly what it's for.
- Scarecrow festivals: many villages now fill their streets with scarecrows for a weekend. Kettlewell in the Yorkshire Dales has held one since the 1990s, and plenty of other villages followed.
- In fiction: the Scarecrow in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) wants a brain, and Worzel Gummidge, from Barbara Euphan Todd's books of the 1930s, comes to life on a farm. The generator leaves those names alone and makes new ones.
Naming your scarecrow
- For the garden or allotment, folksy works best: a title, a plain old name and something from the field (Farmer Ned Hedgely, Mother Hattie Chaff).
- For a scarecrow festival, add a place with With a place so the name goes on a sign: Little Maggie Thatch of Barley Rise.
- For a scary story, the creepy style gives names the locals whisper: the Stitched Man, the Straw Widow.
For more of the countryside's stranger side, try the Witch and Ghost name generators, or the Monster Name Generator for whatever's in the far field.