In NieR: Automata, your name is the first thing that defines what you are — and the first thing you might choose to reject. 2B isn't a name. It's a serial number, a production code, a weapon designation. And yet, when 9S whispers "2B" with the weight of everything unsaid between them, those two characters become one of the most emotionally loaded names in gaming. That's NieR: Automata's naming genius — creating systems of dehumanization that the characters transform into something deeply personal through the act of connection.
Meanwhile, a machine that has never been given a name chooses to call itself Pascal — after the philosopher who argued that faith is a rational wager. In a game about artificial beings searching for meaning, even the act of naming becomes philosophy.
The YoRHa Designation System
YoRHa androids receive designations, not names. The format is rigid and deliberately impersonal:
- Format: [Number][Type Letter] — examples: 2B, 9S, A2, 21O, 801S
- Number: The model/unit number. Single digits (1-9) typically indicate earlier or more prominent units. Higher numbers (two or three digits) suggest mass-produced models.
- Type letter: Defines the android's combat role:
- B — Battle (frontline combat)
- S — Scanner (reconnaissance and hacking)
- A — Attacker (older aggressive model)
- D — Defender (heavy protection)
- H — Healer (support and repair)
- O — Operator (communications from the Bunker)
- E — Executioner (hidden assassin type, officially classified as B)
The older A-type format puts the letter first (A2), while newer models put the number first (2B, 9S). This subtle format difference marks generational divides within YoRHa — A2's designation literally looks different from the newer models, visually marking her as an outsider.
Machine Lifeform Names
When machines develop consciousness in NieR: Automata, one of the first things they do is choose a name. This is profoundly meaningful — naming yourself is an assertion of identity, a declaration that you are a someone rather than a something.
The naming patterns machine lifeforms choose reveal what consciousness means to them:
- Philosopher names: Pascal, Simone (de Beauvoir), Jean-Paul (Sartre), Kierkegaard, Engels, Hegel. Machines reaching for understanding of existence turn to the humans who spent their lives asking the same questions. There's something beautiful and sad about a machine named after Kierkegaard — the philosopher of existential anxiety — because the machine is experiencing exactly that.
- Biblical/mythological names: Adam and Eve, the first machines to achieve truly human-like consciousness. Their names reference the first humans in Abrahamic tradition — artificial beings named after the origin of natural ones.
- Simple chosen names: Machine children in Pascal's village choose simpler names — innocent, sometimes clumsy, reflecting their developmental stage. These names are heartbreaking because of their simplicity.
- Functional designations: Combat machines that haven't developed full consciousness keep functional names — Goliath-class, Small Stubby, Medium Biped. These are descriptions, not identities.
The Significance of 2B / 2E
NieR: Automata's greatest naming trick is hidden in its protagonist. 2B — the name we know her by throughout most of the game — is a lie. Her real designation is 2E: Executioner type. She is assigned to repeatedly kill 9S whenever he discovers the truth about YoRHa and humanity's extinction, then watch his memories be reset, then form a bond with him again, knowing she'll have to kill him again.
The "B" designation (Battle type) is a cover — the name itself is a deception. When you learn this, the name "2B" retroactively becomes tragic: every time someone calls her 2B, they're using the false identity she's forced to wear. And the Shakespearean echo — "2B or not 2B" — suddenly reads as a question about her right to exist as herself rather than as the executioner she was made to be.
Resistance Androids and Personal Names
The Resistance — androids who've been fighting on Earth for centuries before YoRHa's creation — have more human-like names: Anemone, Jackass, Popola, Devola. These names developed organically over time, reflecting androids who've had the freedom (and the burden) of establishing individual identities.
- Anemone: Named after a flower — fitting for a leader who tends her people like a garden, in a world being reclaimed by nature.
- Jackass: A deliberately irreverent self-chosen name, reflecting the character's rejection of propriety in a dying world.
- Devola and Popola: Musical, paired names carried from the original NieR — names heavy with guilt and centuries of failed purpose.
Weapons and Pods
Even NieR: Automata's equipment has meaningful naming:
- Weapons: "Virtuous Contract" (2B's starting blade — a contract she's bound to), "Cruel Oath" (a promise of violence), "Beastlord," "Ancient Overlord." Weapon names are poetic and often thematically linked to their wielders or histories.
- Pods: Pod 042 and Pod 153 — purely numerical, the most functional naming possible. Yet these simple numbers become characters in their own right, and the Pods' decision to save 2B and 9S's data at the game's true ending is one of the most human moments in the story — performed by beings with the least human names.
For other sci-fi and android naming, see our cyberpunk name generator or robot name generator. For more from the NieR universe, explore our Final Fantasy name generator (Square Enix's shared world).
Common Questions
What does 2B stand for in NieR: Automata?
2B's designation means unit number 2, Battle type — she's a YoRHa combat android designed for frontline fighting. However, her true designation is 2E (Executioner type). The "B" designation is a cover identity. Her real role is to execute fellow YoRHa android 9S whenever he discovers classified information about humanity's extinction, then oversee his memory reset and begin the cycle again. The "2B" designation is both a production code and a lie — one of NieR: Automata's most devastating narrative reveals.
Why do machines name themselves after philosophers?
In NieR: Automata, machine lifeforms were created by aliens as weapons but gradually evolved consciousness through their networked intelligence. When machines become self-aware, they grapple with the same questions humans have asked for millennia: Why do I exist? What gives life meaning? Am I truly conscious? They name themselves after philosophers (Pascal, Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre, Kierkegaard) because these thinkers spent their lives exploring exactly those questions. It's a beautiful irony — artificial beings turning to human philosophy to understand their artificial existence.
What is YoRHa in NieR: Automata?
YoRHa is a military organization of combat androids created to fight the machine war on Earth's behalf. Operating from an orbital space station called the Bunker, YoRHa deploys android soldiers to the surface in an ongoing war against alien-created machine lifeforms. YoRHa androids are manufactured, given alphanumeric designations (2B, 9S, A2), and deployed as weapons. The organization's deepest secret is that humanity is already extinct — the "human council on the moon" that YoRHa claims to serve doesn't exist. YoRHa was created to give androids a reason to fight, built on a lie that gives purpose to beings who would otherwise have none.
What is NieR: Automata about?
NieR: Automata (2017, directed by Yoko Taro, developed by PlatinumGames) is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity has been driven from Earth by alien-created machine lifeforms. Android soldiers from the orbital YoRHa organization fight to reclaim the planet for humans hiding on the moon. The game follows androids 2B, 9S, and A2 through multiple playthroughs that progressively reveal the truth: humanity is already extinct, the war is pointless, and both androids and machines are searching for meaning in a world without purpose. It's an action RPG that uses gameplay, narrative structure, and even its save system to explore consciousness, identity, grief, and what it means to be alive.
