120 Pirate Last Names
By The PirateShipName editorial desk · Last updated August 2026
Here are 150 plus pirate last names, split into genuine 17th and 18th century surnames, occupational names, nautical epithets used as surnames, and invented options for fantasy settings.
Surnames carry class information that first names do not, and readers pick it up without noticing. Barlow and Thatcher sound like working people. Deveraux and Ravenscroft sound like someone who fell a long way to end up on a pirate ship. Choosing between those two is a storytelling decision, not a cosmetic one.
Or roll your own
Common period surnames
Genuinely widespread in England and its colonies in the golden age. These read as ordinary, which is exactly right.
Occupational surnames
English surnames that began as jobs. A crew full of these reads instantly as working people who went to sea.
Nautical epithets used as surnames
Not real surnames, but the sea equivalent, and they work well when the character left their old name behind.
Gentry and fallen surnames
Names with money behind them. Use one when the character's presence on a pirate ship should raise a question.
Dark surnames
For characters whose name arrives before they do.
Fantasy surnames
For settings with magic in the water.
What a surname tells a reader
English surnames carry origin information that most readers absorb without analysing. Occupational names such as Cooper, Fletcher and Chandler come from trades, and a character carrying one reads as having come from a working family. Place-derived and Norman-derived names such as Deveraux and Winterbourne carry the opposite signal.
You can use that. A crew whose surnames are all trades and one Deveraux immediately raises a question about the one, and you have done character work with nothing but a name list. This is the cheapest storytelling available to anyone writing a ship's company.
When a character abandons their surname
Plenty of people in the historical record went to sea under a name that was not theirs, for reasons ranging from debt to desertion to a hanging offence. A character who uses a nautical word as a surname, Salt or Gale or Tide, is signalling that the original one is gone.
That is a useful device because it invites exactly one question and answers nothing. If a reader wonders what a character's real name was, you have their attention for as long as you decline to say.
Avoiding names that are too modern
The most common mistake in period naming is a surname that only entered common use later, or one that reads as American rather than English or colonial. Readers rarely identify the problem but they do feel it, and it quietly costs you credibility in the first page.
The safest approach is to borrow from the actual record. Teach, Kidd, Vane, Rackham, Roberts, Every, Bonny and Read were all real. So were thousands of Coopers and Thatchers who never made a court report. Anything from those two pools will sit correctly in a golden age setting.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are good pirate last names?
Real period surnames read best: Teach, Kidd, Vane, Rackham, Barlow, Thatcher, Crowe. They sound ordinary, which is correct, since the drama in a pirate name belongs in the epithet rather than the surname.
What were real pirates' last names?
Edward Teach, William Kidd, Charles Vane, John Rackham, Bartholomew Roberts, Henry Every, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. All are plain English surnames of the period, with no drama in them at all.
Can I use a nautical word as a pirate surname?
Yes, and it does useful work. Salt, Gale, Tide or Fathom as a surname signals that the character's original name is gone, which raises a question about their past without you having to answer it.