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Q&A Is using an online name generator a good idea?

I find them helpful, but often wrong. I used one that has different ethnic groups to get ideas for names. Always always Google the name that comes up. Some of the "girl names" turned out to be...

posted 5y ago by Cyn‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-20T00:40:36Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41786
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:45:25Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41786
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T10:45:25Z (over 4 years ago)
 **I find them helpful, but often wrong.**

I used one that has different ethnic groups to get ideas for names. Always always Google the name that comes up. Some of the "girl names" turned out to be used only for boys (sometimes it went the other way). Names said to be Egyptian turned out to be Hebrew. Names said to be Hebrew turned out to be Yiddish. In some cases, the names were of famous/known people (but not celebrities).

**In zero cases (out of maybe 100 names I Googled from the generator) did I discover the name came from a specific copyrighted work.**

As for credit, no, you do not need to credit it as a source. The generator either spits back names loaded into it with particular tags or it creates names based on certain algorithms. The programmer does not own the names.

**You can not copyright a name.** Don't use well-known names that are unique but the legal issues for random names aren't something to worry about. Google is your friend though. Find out where the name comes from and proceed accordingly.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-01-31T05:46:48Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 2