Hero name generator

Almost every famous hero name follows one of a handful of patterns. Knowing them helps you pick one on purpose, and tells you which crowded corners to avoid: a plain noun or a -man name is the hardest place to find something new.

Each power in the generator has its own words, and the villain style turns the same words dark with titles and growling endings. These are real results, a hero and a villain for every power:

A comic book hero usually has two identities: the codename the public knows and a private one, usually their legal name. The codename can outlive the person. Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel, Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel and Miles Morales Spider-Man, so a good codename works as a title someone else could inherit.

The civilian name matters too. Stan Lee said he gave characters alliterative names such as Bruce Banner because they were easier for him to remember. It did not always save him: he called the Hulk Bob Banner for a while, then fixed the slip in Fantastic Four #28 by making him Robert Bruce Banner. Tick Alliterative identity in the hero builder for the same trick.

For decades, Marvel and DC jointly held trademark registrations for SUPER HERO and SUPER HEROES. The first, for Halloween costumes, was registered in 1967 by the costume maker Ben Cooper, and the rights later passed to the two publishers.

In 2024 Superbabies Ltd, a British maker of children's superhero comics and books, petitioned to cancel four of the registrations, for costumes, toy figures, comic books and T-shirts. Marvel and DC did not answer, and on September 26, 2024 the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board granted a default judgment and cancelled them. Because it was a default, the board never ruled on whether superhero is a generic word. A SUPER HEROES registration for animated films and the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES mark were still registered in October 2026.

The petition also says DC had claimed exclusive rights to Super followed by a word for a person, so names like Super Grandma are still the riskiest corner for anything you sell. The name check in the hero builder flags them.

Not with copyright. The US Copyright Office's Circular 33 lists the name of a character among the words and short phrases copyright does not cover, though it notes they may be protected as trademarks. Publishers have fought hard for the trademarks:

• Fawcett's 1939 hero was meant to be Captain Thunder, but that name was already in use, so he became Captain Marvel. Marvel launched its own Captain Marvel in 1967 and secured the trademark, and when DC brought the original back in 1972 it had to publish him as Shazam!, the name he officially took in 2012.
• Marvel created Spider-Woman in 1977 partly so no other company could claim the name; Stan Lee said he wanted to protect it. She-Hulk followed for the same reason, in case the Hulk TV show added a female Hulk of its own.

For your own hero: avoid famous codenames and anything with Marvel in it, search the USPTO before you publish or sell, and prefer an invented compound, which is easier to own. Superman himself started out as a villain: the name first appeared in Siegel and Shuster's 1933 story The Reign of the Superman, five years before Action Comics #1. This is general information, not legal advice.