Asian Last Name Generator

Surname first or last: Asian name order

In China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam the family name traditionally comes first, so in the Chinese name Wang Wei, Wang is the family and Wei the individual. In Japanese, Tanaka Hiroshi puts Tanaka first. Many people reverse the order in English contexts, which is why the same person may appear as Hiroshi Tanaka on a business card abroad. Japan's government has asked that Japanese names in English keep the family name first, but usage still varies.

Vietnamese is a special case. Nguyễn, Trần and Lê are so widespread that people are addressed by their given name, the last element, even formally, so Nguyễn Văn An is Mr An. In Thailand the given name comes first, and surnames only became compulsory in 1913; they are long and often unique to one family. In the Philippines, Western order is normal, and many Indonesians, especially Javanese, have only one name.

Common surnames across East and Southeast Asia

Chinese has relatively few surnames in wide use. Wang (王, king), Li (李, plum), Zhang (张), Liu (刘) and Chen (陈) together cover several hundred million people. Korean is even more concentrated: Kim (김, gold), Lee (이, plum) and Park (박, gourd) account for close to half the population. Japanese goes the other way, with more than a hundred thousand surnames, many built from landscape words, such as Tanaka (田中, middle of the rice field) and Yamamoto (山本, base of the mountain).

Vietnamese surnames echo Chinese ones: Nguyễn, Trần, Lê and Phạm all come from Chinese characters, and close to forty percent of Vietnamese people are named Nguyễn. Filipino surnames are largely Spanish, such as Santos, Reyes, Cruz and Bautista, the result of an 1849 decree that assigned surnames from an official catalogue. Thai surnames such as Shinawatra (ชินวัตร) are long, often built from Pali and Sanskrit roots, while Indonesians such as Sukarno often use a single name.

Using the Asian last name generator well

Because this page mixes seven naming traditions, first decide which country your character comes from. A Korean character named Tanaka will puzzle readers who know the region, unless the story explains it. Look at the script shown with each result: Chinese characters for Chinese names, kanji for Japanese, Hangul for Korean and Thai script for Thai. Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet with tone marks, so keep the diacritics if you can.

Short lengths bring up one-syllable Chinese and Korean names, while longer settings favour Japanese, Thai and Filipino surnames. The ends with filter helps you find patterns such as Japanese names ending in moto, mura or da. Add a first name to preview the pairing, and decide which order your story will use for scenes set in Tokyo, Seoul or Hanoi. Copy, save or download your list when you are done.