Your name in runes

A note on names beginning with J: no runic alphabet had the /dʒ/ sound of Jessica. The rune used here (jera in the Elder Futhark, ger in the futhorc, íss in the Younger Futhark) wrote the y- of year. It is the closest available character, not an equivalent. See transliteration vs translation.

A note on digraphs: the engine reads some letter pairs as one sound, so a name can come out a rune or two shorter than its spelling: Christopher, Heather and Michael all do. Across the 147 names below that affects ch, ck, ng, ph, sh and th in every column, plus ae, ea, io and oe in the futhorc column, which has runes for those and the other two alphabets do not.

The rule cannot hear the name, only read it, so on 12 rows below it writes something the name does not say. Every one of these is recoverable: use the tool above and respell the input the way the name sounds, which is what the third layer of transliteration means in practice.

• Angela (ng): AN-juh-luh: an n followed by a soft g, not the single /ŋ/ of "sing". Try Anjela.
• Anthony (th): AN-tuh-nee in British English, where the th is a plain /t/ exactly as in Thomas, so the thorn is wrong. American English says AN-thuh-nee with a real /θ/, and there it is right; the one row in either list whose correctness depends on which side of the Atlantic the reader sits. Try Antony.
• Chloe (oe): KLOH-ee: an o and an e in separate syllables, not the /œ/ the eþel rune writes. Try Chloi.
• Eleanor (ea): EL-uh-nuh: the ea is a single unstressed vowel, not a diphthong, but the futhorc column reads it as one and writes ᛠ ear. Try Elenor.
• Heather (ea): HETH-uh: one short /ɛ/, and the futhorc column writes ᛠ ear for it, a rune that exists to carry a diphthong. Try Hether.
• Ingrid (ng): ING-grid in English is /ŋ/ followed by a hard /g/, and the rule writes the /ŋ/ and drops the g. Note which way this one fails: the name's own Scandinavian pronunciation has no /g/ either, so the runes as generated are right for the Norse form and short by one for the English one. Try Inggrid.
• Matthew (th): MATH-yoo: one /θ/, but the tt leaves a t stranded before it, so the name gets a t-rune and a thorn for a single sound. Try Mathew.
• Michael (ae): MY-kuhl: the ae is one reduced vowel, and the futhorc column writes ᚫ æsc, which is the /æ/ of "cat". Try Michal.
• Sean (ea): SHAWN: the ea is a single /ɔː/, and the futhorc column writes ᛠ ear for it. The initial s is a second problem the rule cannot see, since the name spells /ʃ/ with a plain s. Try Shon.
• Thomas (th): TOM-us: the th is a plain /t/, not the /θ/ of "thorn". Try Tomas.
• Violet (io): VY-uh-let: an i and an o in separate syllables, not the io diphthong. Try Vyolet.
• Zoe (oe): ZOH-ee: as in Chloe, an o and an e either side of a syllable break. Try Zoi.

A different fault affects 5 further rows, and this one has no way out. The pair really is the sound the rule thinks it is; the engine simply has no rune for it, because none of these alphabets had the sound. Respelling moves the problem rather than solving it:

• Stephen (ph): STEE-vən: the ph is /v/ here, not the /f/ the rule assumes, so every column writes an f-rune. Respelling it "Steven" only trades that for the w-rune: none of the three alphabets has a /v/, which is why the Younger Futhark writes f and v with one character in the first place.
• Charles (ch): CHARLZ: the ch is /tʃ/, which no column can write: the Elder and Younger alphabets have no such sound, and futhorc cen is /k/ before the back vowel that follows it here.
• Charlotte (ch): SHAR-lət: the ch is /ʃ/, further still from the /k/ every column writes for it, and no runic alphabet here has a character for that sound.
• Richard (ch): RICH-ərd: /tʃ/ again, and again followed by a back vowel, so even the futhorc column reads it as a k.
• Rachel (ch): RAY-chəl: /tʃ/, written /k/ in the Elder and Younger columns; the futhorc column is right here, because cen does take its /tʃ/ value before the front vowel that follows.

Name not listed? Use the tool above; it handles any input, and explains its choices.

Can I really write a modern name in runes?

You can spell it in runes, which is what almost everyone means. What you cannot do is find "the Norse version" of a modern name: names like Madison or Tyler simply did not exist in the Viking Age, and no runic spelling makes them older than they are.

Which alphabet is best for a name?

For historical accuracy in a Viking context, Younger Futhark. For the most faithful rendering of English spelling, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, which has the richest set of vowels. For the system used in modern rune practice, Elder Futhark.

Why does my name look shorter in Younger Futhark?

Because the Younger Futhark has only sixteen runes and merges several sounds. A name with d, p, g, o, e or y in it will lose those distinctions; that is historically correct, not an error in the tool.

Is a runic name tattoo a good idea?

It can be, provided you know which alphabet you are using and why, and you have checked the individual runes. Some runes carry modern political associations that a viewer cannot be assumed to know you do not intend. Each dictionary entry on this site flags those where they exist.