Name Generator

Generate pseudo-random names based on a corpus of real names.

Note: The names database used here comes from Kaggle. You can use whatever you want.

Requirements

Python 3 (developed in 3.5)
lexlib (pip3 install lexlib or conda install -c cranndarach lexlib)
random (standard library)
IPython (not required, but highly recommended)

Obtain

git clone

git clone https://github.com/cranndarach/namegen.git
cd namegen

zip

Download

cd path/to/downloaded/namegen.zip
zip -d namegen.zip
rm namegen.zip
cd namegen

tarball

Download

cd path/to/downloaded/namegen.tar.gz
tar -xzvf namegen.tar.gz
rm namegen.tar.gz
cd namegen

Run

First, make an appropriate name list (you'll only have to do this once) by running:

python prep_names.py

You'll want to run the name generator interactively. This example shows how to do it in IPython (start an IPython session by entering ipython in your terminal).

%run namegen.py

# To generate one name at a time.
# You can also set the min_len, stop_len,
# and vowel_mod parameters. vowel_mod is
# the inverse probability of skipping the
# consonants for that syllable, resulting
# in multiple vowels in a row.
generate(clusters, vowels)

# To generate a list of names (in this example, 10).
# The same additional parameters can be set here.
generate_many(clusters, vowels, how_many=10)

License and use

You are welcome to use the names you generate freely without attribution (though a link would be nice when it's reasonable).

The software is licensed under the terms of the MIT license, copyright (c) 2016 R. Steiner, meaning roughly that you can use, modify, and distribute it as you like as long as you give credit (see LICENSE.md for details).

cranndarach / namegen