Name Generator for C++

Requires C++23 (e.g., -std=c++23 for GCC/Clang, /std:c++latest for MSVC).

API Reference · Usage Guide · Releases

Features

• Name Generation. Randomly generates first names from popular name databases, organized by gender and culture.

• Surname Generation. Randomly generates surnames, organized by culture.

• Full Name Chaining. Append one or more names and surnames with an intuitive chainable API.

• 105 Cultures Supported. Afghan, Albanian, Algerian, American, Angolan, Argentinian, Austrian, Azerbaijani, Bahraini, Bangladeshi, Belgian, Bolivian, Botswanan, Brazilian, British, Bruneian, Bulgarian, Burkinabe, Burundian, Cambodian, Cameroonian, Canadian, Chilean, Chinese, Colombian, Costa Rican, Croatian, Cypriot, Czech, Danish, Djiboutian, Dutch, Ecuadorian, Egyptian, Emirati, Estonian, Ethiopian, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Ghanaian, Greek, Guatemalan, Haitian, Honduran, Hong Konger, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indian, Indonesian, Iranian, Iraqi, Irish, Israeli, Italian, Jamaican, Japanese, Jordanian, Kazakh, Korean, Kuwaiti, Lebanese, Libyan, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macanese, Malaysian, Maldivian, Maltese, Mauritian, Mexican, Moldovan, Moroccan, Namibian, Nigerian, Norwegian, Omani, Palestinian, Panamanian, Peruvian, Polish, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Qatari, Russian, Salvadoran, Saudi, Serbian, Singaporean, Slovenian, South African, Spanish, Sudanese, Swedish, Swiss, Syrian, Taiwanese, Tunisian, Turkish, Turkmen, Uruguayan, Yemeni.

• Weighted Selection. Names are weighted by their popularity rank in each country so that common names appear more often than rare ones (see Data and Method).

• Dataset Tiers. Choose between a compact lite dataset (3 MB, up to 500 names per list) or the full dataset (41 MB, complete name lists).

• ISO 2-Letter Codes. to_culture() and to_gender() for converting strings to enums.

• Deterministic Seeding. Per-call get_name(gender, culture, seed) for reproducible results, generator-level seed() / unseed() for deterministic sequences, and name::seed() for replaying a previous generation, appended parts included.

• Identical Everywhere. A seed gives the same name on every compiler, standard library and CPU (GCC, Clang, MSVC, Emscripten; x86-64 and ARM64), checked by known-answer tests.

• Extensible Data. Load your own .names layers on top of the shipped lists to add, reweight or remove names (extend()), checked before they are applied.

• JSON and Replay. to_json() on every result, and a signature() recording the seed and the data it came from.

• Compiled-in Data. Define DASMIG_NAME_EMBED to build the lite tier into the program, for WebAssembly and other builds without files.

• Resource Inspection. has_resources() lets you verify databases loaded before generating.

• Multi-Instance Support. Construct independent ng instances with their own name databases and random engine.

Integration

namegen.hpp is the library released here. Keep core.hpp and the core/ directory (dasmig-core) in the same directory. You need to add

#include <dasmig/namegen.hpp>

// For convenience.
using ng = dasmig::ng;

to the files you want to generate names and set the necessary switches to enable C++23 (e.g., -std=c++23 for GCC and Clang).

Additionally you must supply the name generator with the resources folder also available in the release, or define DASMIG_NAME_EMBED to compile the lite tier in.

Version 3 changes every seeded result; see Migrating from v2.

Usage

Due to the necessity of supporting multiple culture characters and the way std::string works on Windows, this library uses std::wstring for all generated names; dasmig::core::to_utf8() converts them, and to_json() is UTF-8.

When requesting a name for the first time the singleton loads the lite tier, from the compiled-in copy or from resources/lite (it looks in resources, ../resources, name-generator/resources and ../name-generator/resources). Manually load the resources folder if it's in a different location, or use load(dataset) to pick between the lite and full tiers. Loading replaces what was loaded; extend() adds to it.

#include <dasmig/namegen.hpp>

using ng = dasmig::ng;

// Load the lite dataset (3 MB, up to 500 names per list).
(void)ng::instance().load(dasmig::dataset::lite);

// Or load the full dataset (41 MB, complete name lists).
// (void)ng::instance().load(dasmig::dataset::full);

// Manually load a custom directory if necessary.
// ng::instance().load("path/to/resources");

// Generate a name of any culture and any gender.
std::wstring name = ng::instance().get_name();

// Generate a female name of any culture.
std::wstring female_name = ng::instance().get_name(dasmig::gender::f);

// Generate a male Bulgarian name.
std::wstring bulgarian = ng::instance().get_name(dasmig::gender::m,
                                                  dasmig::culture::bulgarian);

// Generate a full name: first + two surnames.
std::wstring full = ng::instance().get_name().append_surname().append_surname();

// Access individual parts.
auto n = ng::instance().get_name().append_surname();
for (const auto& part : n.parts())
    std::wcout << part << L" ";

// Deterministic generation — same seed always produces the same name.
auto seeded = ng::instance().get_name(dasmig::gender::m,
                                       dasmig::culture::american, 42);

// Replay a previous name using its seed.
auto replay = ng::instance().get_name(dasmig::gender::m,
                                       dasmig::culture::american,
                                       seeded.seed());

// The result as JSON, with the seed and the data it came from.
std::string json = seeded.append_surname().to_json();

// Add names of your own on top of the shipped lists.
ng::instance().extend("mods/brazilian_female.names");

// Seed the engine for a deterministic sequence.
ng::instance().seed(100);
// ... generate names ...
ng::instance().unseed(); // restore non-deterministic state

// Independent instance with its own databases and engine.
ng my_gen;
my_gen.load("path/to/resources");
std::wstring name2 = my_gen.get_name().append_surname();

For the complete feature guide — cultures, chaining, thread safety, seeding, extending data, compiled-in data, and more — see the Usage Guide. Where the names come from and what they leave out: Data and Method.

Building

# Example
make

# Tests (and with the lite tier compiled in)
make test
make test-embed

# Code coverage
make coverage

# API docs
make docs

# Regenerate the compiled-in lite tier
make embed

Compiler Support

Tested with:

• Clang 18+ (-std=c++23)
• GCC 14+ (-std=c++23)
• MSVC 19.38+ (/std:c++latest)

Dependencies

Dependency	Version	Bundled	Purpose
dasmig-core	1.0	Yes (core.hpp, core/)	Platform-independent random engine and weighted choice, data layers, JSON
Catch2	3.x	Yes (amalgamated)	Unit testing

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city-generator	Weighted city selection by population
country-generator	Weighted country selection by population
entity-generator	ECS-based entity generation