These terms cover your use of NameLore. They are short, because the site is simple: you press a button, it gives you names, and the names are yours.
The names are yours to use
Every name generated on NameLore is free to use, for any purpose, including commercial ones. You may use them in novels, tabletop campaigns, published games, films, apps, brand names, or anything else, and you do not need to credit NameLore or ask our permission.
We claim no ownership over the names you generate and we grant no exclusivity over them. The generator is deterministic and public, so another visitor can produce the same name. If you need a name nobody else can use, that is a trademark question, not a generator question — see below.
Why we can say that
Our names are assembled from Old Norse word-roots drawn from public-domain scholarly dictionaries — principally the Cleasby–Vigfússon Icelandic–English Dictionary (1874) and Zoëga's Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (1910), both long out of copyright. Individual words and short names are not themselves copyrightable in most jurisdictions. There is no third-party licence sitting underneath the output that could constrain what you do with it.
What we do not promise
A generated name being free of our claims does not make it free of everyone's. Before you attach a name to a business, a product, or anything you intend to defend, check it yourself:
- Trademarks. A generated name may coincide with an existing registered mark. We do not check any trademark register, and you should before commercial use.
- Existing characters and settings. A combination of common roots can land on a name already used in a published work. Coincidence is not permission.
- Real people. Names of living people carry their own rules, and this is a fantasy-name tool, not a check against them.
- Etymology. We show the meaning of each root as our sources record it, and we take that seriously — but it is reference material, not scholarship you should cite in academic work without going back to the dictionaries themselves.
Using the site itself
The names are yours; the site is not. Please do not scrape NameLore in bulk, republish our lexicon or meaning explanations as your own dataset, or clone the generators. The site's text, design, code and the compiled lexicon remain ours. If you want to build something with the underlying data, write to us — the answer is often yes.
No warranty
NameLore is provided as-is, without warranties of any kind. We do our best to keep it accurate and available, but we cannot guarantee it will be either, and we are not liable for losses arising from your use of the site or of a name you found here.
Privacy
Names are generated in your own browser and are never sent to us or stored. The full detail is in our privacy policy.
Changes to these terms
If we update these terms, the revised version will appear on this page with a new “last updated” date. Changes are not retroactive: names you generated under an earlier version stay governed by it, and we have no intention of ever narrowing the usage grant above.
Contact
Questions about these terms, or about using a name in a specific project? Email hello@namelore.io.