Ship Name Generator

Type two names. You'll get every sensible portmanteau, ranked by how naturally it rolls off the tongue — instantly, in your browser.

First character

Second character

Try:

Your ship names appear here as you type both names — or tap one of the examples. Top three are highlighted.

Why some ship names click and others clunk

A ship name is a portmanteau: the front of one name glued to the back of another. Linguists call the join the seam. Blends sound like a single word when the seam swaps between a consonant and a vowel — "Bra|ngelina" — and like a typo when two consonants crash together. Drag the cut points and listen.

First name

Second name

Keep the first 3 letters of "brad"

Drop the first 1 letters of "angelina"

brangelina

Seam score 3. Reads naturally — the seam alternates consonant and vowel, so it sounds like one word.

A short history of ship names

"Shipping" comes from "relationship" and took hold in the X-Files fandom in the mid-1990s, when fans who wanted Mulder and Scully together called themselves "relationshippers". Portmanteau names followed: tabloids popularised "Bennifer" and "Brangelina" in the 2000s, and fandoms did the same with Drarry, Johnlock and Destiel.

A good ship name is short (two or three syllables), pronounceable at first sight, and ideally sounds a little like a real word. That's exactly what the ranking above rewards: seams that alternate consonant and vowel, a total length of five to nine letters, and a bonus when the two names share a letter at the join.

Named your ship? Work out what makes them tick on the ship dynamics page, or write them a first scene with the fanfic generator.

More tools in the kit

Questions writers ask

How are ship names made?

Most are portmanteaus: the beginning of one character's name plus the end of the other's (Drarry, Klance, Johnlock). Some fandoms use a slash tag instead (Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter), and a few ships get names from a shared joke, a place or a number.

Which name goes first?

There's no rule. Fandoms usually settle on whichever order sounds best, which this generator tests both ways. On AO3 the official relationship tag lists names alphabetically by surname in many fandoms, but the ship name is up to fans.

What does "/" versus "&" mean in AO3 tags?

On AO3, a slash (A/B) marks a romantic or sexual relationship and an ampersand (A & B) marks a platonic one — friendship, family, rivalry.

Can I make a ship name for three people?

Yes — enter the first two, pick a blend, then run the blend with the third name. Polyamorous ships are often named this way or with a shared theme word.

Does this work for couple names in real life?

It does. The algorithm doesn't know or care whether the names belong to fictional characters, so it works for couples, pets, band names or a wedding hashtag.