gizmobench

Code Name Generator

This page opens the fantasy name generator on its Code name chip, so code names are on screen before you touch anything, whatever style you last used here. What this chip makes is an adjective in front of a plain noun: Silent Kestrel, Crooked Obelisk, Restless Rampart, Hollow Latchkey. Nothing on this style is invented. Where the Elf, Dragon and Orc chips assemble a name out of syllable fragments, Code name draws whole English words and stands them side by side, which is why the output reads like an operation somebody wrote on a folder rather than like a word from another language. The nouns are a fixed list of 44 written into this style, and no other of the 31 styles carries one of them in its stem list: alabaster, anvil, beacon, bramble, cipher, coracle, dovetail, hollyhock, ingot, inkstone, jackdaw, kestrel, latchkey, meridian, nightjar, obelisk, pendulum, quicksilver, rookery, spindle, talisman, vellum, windrow, yardarm, zephyr and nineteen more, five to eleven letters each, with every letter of the alphabet except X opening at least one of them. The adjectives are twelve and the page draws no others: Silent, Copper, Rolling, Hollow, Static, Amber, Crooked, Distant, Sudden, Pale, Iron and Restless, each landing on about one row in twelve. Every line is two or three capitalised words with no number, no hyphen and no punctuation anywhere in it, and the word Operation is never printed, so you put that in front yourself if it is the shape you want. What the Length control changes is the form rather than the word. Short is always a pair. Medium draws a pair about two rows in three and a three word string on the rest, Copper Hollyhock Meridian or Iron Zephyr Yardarm. Long is close to half and half, and its pair form is the one that goes looking for alliteration, which is why Iron Inkstone and Restless Rampart turn up most there: only 24 pairs in this style can alliterate, since exactly two of the 44 nouns start with the letter of any given adjective, and the draw gives that match a dozen attempts before it accepts what it has. The small line under each name reads the noun the row drew, cut into syllables with the stressed one in capitals, KEST-rel, ROO-ke-ry, PEN-du-lum. Ask for up to 100 code names a press, star the ones worth keeping, and type a seed word when you want the same grid back tomorrow. Nothing you type is uploaded and no account is asked for.

Building names

Style
Code name
Length

The chips choose the style, and each one is a different syllable set: Code name builds place and thing names. Type a seed word to make a run repeatable, or leave it empty for a fresh set every press. The line under each name is a reading cue for the invented word the name is built on, cut at the joins the generator used.

A seed word makes a run repeatable. Type one and this style and length return the same names in the same order, on any machine, so a session you planned last week comes back unchanged. Leave it empty and every press draws fresh from the browser’s cryptographic generator. Nothing you type is uploaded, and we place no restriction on using the names you keep.

Common questions

What shape is a code name on this page?
Two or three capitalised words and nothing else: one adjective from a fixed list of twelve, then one or two nouns from a fixed list of 44. Silent Kestrel, Crooked Obelisk and Pale Keystone are the pair form. Copper Meridian Keystone, Silent Opaline Domino and Iron Zephyr Yardarm are the three word form, which stands a second noun behind the first. No row carries a number, a hyphen, an apostrophe or a bracket, so a name drops straight into a document title, a branch name or a line of dialogue. The word Operation is never printed either: the only words this style can put on screen are its twelve adjectives and its 44 nouns, so if you want Operation Silent Kestrel you type the first word yourself.
Are these invented words or real English ones?
Real ones, and on this chip that is the point rather than a shortcut. Every noun the page can draw is an ordinary English word used whole, with nothing added to it, no prefix, no ending and no second stem joined on: alabaster, anvil, beacon, bramble, cipher, coracle, domino, dovetail, elmwood, flagstone, granite, harbour, hollyhock, ingot, inkstone, jackdaw, juniper, kestrel, kettle, keystone, lantern, latchkey, limestone, marlin, meridian, mosaic, nightjar, nomad, obelisk, opaline, pendulum, pewter, quarry, quicksilver, rampart, rookery, sable, spindle, talisman, umbrella, vellum, windrow, yardarm and zephyr. Harbour is the one whose spelling depends on where you are, and it is written the British way. The hint under the stage calls each style a syllable set and describes the line beneath a name as a reading cue for the invented word the name is built on, which is true of the Elf and Dragon chips and is not true here: there is no invented word on this style, and the cue is the drawn noun with its stress marked. What does hold on this chip is the part of the accuracy line that matters. The list was written for this tool, no other of the 31 styles has one of these words in its stem list, and no name here is copied from a published character list. The invention on Code name is the pairing, not the vocabulary.
What does the Length control change for a code name?
The form, not the length of the word. The noun is a single entry from the list at Short, Medium and Long alike, five to eleven letters, so Ingot and Quicksilver come out of the same setting as each other. What changes is the mix of shapes. Short is always a pair, an adjective and one noun. Medium draws a pair on about two rows in three and a three word string on the rest. Long sits close to half and half, and its pair form is the alliterating one, so a Long grid reads differently from a Short grid of the same size even though the words are the same words. Length is part of the draw rather than a filter over it, so the same seed word at another length returns a different list rather than a trimmed one.
Why do some of these names alliterate?
Because one of the two pair forms asks for it. When that form runs it draws a noun, and if the noun does not start with the adjective's letter it draws again, up to a dozen times, before accepting what it has. Exactly two of the 44 nouns share the first letter of any given adjective, so the request lands about four times in ten, and the whole style holds only 24 alliterating pairs: Amber Alabaster, Amber Anvil, Copper Cipher, Copper Coracle, Crooked Cipher, Crooked Coracle, Distant Domino, Distant Dovetail, Hollow Harbour, Hollow Hollyhock, Iron Ingot, Iron Inkstone, Pale Pendulum, Pale Pewter, Restless Rampart, Restless Rookery, Rolling Rampart, Rolling Rookery, Silent Sable, Silent Spindle, Static Sable, Static Spindle, Sudden Sable and Sudden Spindle. At Short and Medium that form is one template among others and about two pairs in ten come out alliterating. At Long it is the only pair form there is, and the figure is about four in ten.
Can I get the same code names back tomorrow?
Type a word into the Seed word field. With a seed the names come from a small stream that word starts, so the same seed on the Code name chip at the same length returns the same names in the same order, on this machine and on anyone else's: the seed opal at Medium opens Amber Cipher, Iron Jackdaw, Pale Vellum Lantern, Silent Limestone Quarry, Amber Limestone and Crooked Anvil Pewter every time. Asking for more names extends that list rather than reshuffling it, at all three lengths, so a run of 40 opens with the eight you already had and a collaborator needs the seed word rather than the list. Leave the field empty and every press of Generate draws fresh from the browser's cryptographic generator, which cannot be replayed, and a seed of only spaces counts as empty. The Count field takes a whole number from 1 to 100: ask for none and the tool says to ask for at least 1, ask for 101 and it says 100 names is the most one press can make, rather than trimming the list quietly.
Why does the same word keep coming back in one grid?
Because there are only 44 nouns behind this style, and a grid of 100 asks for more than a hundred of them. The tool works against repeated lines rather than repeated words: when a name it has already placed comes up again it draws another, up to sixteen times, and grids of 100 came back with no repeated line at any of the three lengths when this page was checked against the tool, two hundred grids at each. Words are a different matter. Even the default grid of 12 shows one noun twice about nine times in ten at Medium, and in a grid of 100 a single noun turned up as often as 8 times at Short, 11 at Medium and 13 at Long. The room the draw has is 528 pairs, twelve adjectives times 44 nouns, plus 22,704 three word strings at Medium and Long. Inside one three word line the second noun is drawn again whenever it lands on the first, so no line ever repeats its own word.
How do I keep and copy the code names I want?
Every name in the grid has a star beside it. Press it and that name drops into a kept list under the tool with its style and its reading cue, and pressing the star again takes it out. Clicking the name itself copies that one name, Copy all copies the grid on screen and Copy kept copies the list you built, both one name to a line and both without the reading cue, so what lands on the clipboard is the names alone. Pressing Generate again leaves the kept list alone, so you can draw several times and collect as you go. That list lives in this tab only and goes when you close it, which is the honest limit: copy what you want before you leave. The length, count and seed word are remembered in this browser and the Start over button at the top of the page forgets them, but this page still opens on Code name whatever is remembered, because the page sets the style itself.
Can I get a one word code name, or a name for the agent rather than the operation?
Not from this chip: every line here has an adjective in front of the noun, at all three lengths. Three ways round that. Copy a line and keep the last word, and note that the reading cue under each name reads the first noun alone, so it points at the part worth keeping. Or step one chip sideways, which redraws the grid without a page load: Tabletop at Short is a bare single word, Xara, Vespa, Dassa or Renna, and Superhero gives a cape alias such as Amber Pyrelight or The Solar Overwatch. Pirate gives a name with a byname behind it, Mordant Saltmouth or Keeley Blackcuff. Each chip owns its own word list, and coming back to this page still opens on Code name.
Can I use one of these code names for a project, a game or a product?
We place no restriction on the names this page produces, and nothing here is licensed to you or withheld from you. The caution on this style is sharper than on the invented ones, and it is worth a minute. Because every word is ordinary English and the shape is the familiar adjective and noun, a pair such as Silent Kestrel or Iron Inkstone is exactly the kind of string somebody has already used for a band, a release, a repository or a trademark, in places this tool cannot see. That is the style working as intended rather than a copy of anything, and it still means a name headed for a cover or a product page is worth a search first. If you want a sound with no history behind it, the chips built from invented syllables, Elf, Dragon, Demon and Orc among them, are one step along the same strip.

Every syllable set here is written for this tool and assembled by rule, so a name can land near a real one by chance but is never copied from a published character list. The pronunciation cue is built from the same syllables, so it is a reading aid rather than a claim about any language.