Good techno names are short, hard and a little anonymous: a single machine word, a real name, a code or a model number. This techno name generator makes artist aliases, duo and collective names, record labels and EP titles in that spirit, from Ballast to Station Nord.
Eight good techno names
All eight came from the generator, for artists, duos, labels and releases:
- Module 101: a model-number alias, the way Detroit's pioneers named themselves.
- Vera Brenner: a plain real-sounding name, for a DJ who lets the music talk.
- NRTH: a word with the vowels taken out.
- Divider & Silo: two machine words for a duo.
- Saltworks Collective: an industrial building for a collective.
- Kessel Trax: a label named after a boiler, with the old Chicago "Trax".
- Spannung EP: a German word ("tension") for a Berlin-style release.
- Power Cut EP: an EP title that sounds like what happens at 4 a.m.
How techno names itself
Techno began in Detroit in the mid-1980s, with Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, often called the Belleville Three. Juan Atkins recorded as Model 500, which set a pattern: an alias that sounds like a machine. After the Berlin Wall came down, the music found a second home in Berlin, where the Tresor club opened in 1991 in the old vaults of a department store.
The generator follows both cities:
- Artist aliases are machine words, codes or real names: single words like Basalt or Traction, codes like Series 404, names like Tobias Vogel.
- Duos and collectives sound like industrial units: Grey Units, Foundry Sound System.
- Record labels use "Trax", "Audio" or a factory word: Anvil Trax, Ringway Electronics. The "Trax" habit goes back to Chicago's house label Trax Records.
- EPs are often one German word or a catalogue-style number: Rauch (smoke), Gleis 404 (track 404).
Using the names
- Search Discogs, Beatport and SoundCloud before you commit. Short machine words are popular in techno, so a code or a two-word name is easier to own.
- Starting a label? Check the name isn't trademarked, and that the domain and social handles are free.
For warmer dance music, try the House Music Name Generator, or the Drum and Bass Name Generator for something faster. For a DJ name in any style, there's the DJ Name Generator.
For more genres, see all the music genre name generators.