Horse name generator
Stable names and show names, generated from the habits British yards actually use. Press it as often as you like.
Written by Craig Fearn, Stable & Hoof.
These are suggestions, not checks. Nothing here is verified against the General Stud Book or the Weatherbys register, so a name you like may already be taken or may break a racing rule. The rules are set out below. These patterns reach 978 distinct names. It will not run out.
The rules, if the horse will ever race
A stable name can be anything. A racing name cannot, and the restrictions are stricter than most people expect. Weatherbys, which runs the register for British racing, sets them out plainly.
“Names can have a maximum of 18 characters including spaces and punctuation.” That is the rule that kills most good ideas, and it is why so many racehorse names read like telegrams.
Three more restrictions catch people out. A name “must not include the name of a real person or someone who has been dead for less than 50 years unless their written permission or the permission of their family is provided”. Names “must not have any obvious commercial significance”, so the sponsor idea is out. And a name “must not include suggestive, vulgar or obscene words”, with meanings that are not in poor taste and not offensive to any religious, ethnic or political group.
Roughly three thousand names are protected outright — the winners of the major races and notable retired horses — and those never come back into circulation. None of this applies to a horse that will never run under Rules, which is most horses.
Stable name or show name
British yards mostly run two names at once and it confuses newcomers. The show name is the long one on the schedule and the passport. The stable name is what everybody actually says, and it is usually shorter, softer and often edible — the Nutmegs, Biscuits and Pickles of the world.
It matters here for a practical reason: the stable name is the one that belongs on something you hang up. It is what the horse answers to and what the family says at dinner. The show name goes on the paperwork.
Naming for the coat
The oldest naming habit in Britain is simply to describe the horse. A Yorkshire diarist wrote in 1647 that he “rid on Scueball to Carlecoates” — a skewbald horse called, essentially, Skewbald. If you are working from the coat, the words are worth getting right: see piebald or skewbald, dun or buckskin, and what makes a horse coloured.
Also in choosing your horse
Try it
Type a horse's name and watch the print set itself. Free, no photo needed, about ten seconds.
From the tack room
Questions, answered
How long can a racehorse name be?
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Eighteen characters. Weatherbys states: "Names can have a maximum of 18 characters including spaces and punctuation." It is the restriction that ends most good ideas.
Can you name a racehorse after a person?
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Not usually. Weatherbys requires that a name "must not include the name of a real person or someone who has been dead for less than 50 years unless their written permission or the permission of their family is provided."
What is the difference between a stable name and a show name?
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The show name is the long one on the schedule and the passport. The stable name is what the horse is actually called in the yard, and it is usually shorter and more domestic.
From the journal