In the Sixth World, most people have two names. The one on their System Identification Number — their legal identity, their SIN — and the one the shadows know them by. Shadowrunners trade in the gap between those two things. The SIN might belong to a ghost that doesn't exist anymore, or it might be scraped clean by a good fixer. The street name is the one that actually means something: it's reputation, warning, and introduction all at once.
Shadowrun names reflect everything the setting is — multicultural sprawl, metatype diversity, corporate influence, and the particular grime of living outside the law in a world that has both cybernetic implants and actual dragons running Fortune 500 companies. Getting a name right means understanding where the character came from and what the shadows taught them.
The Two-Name System
Legal names in the Sixth World follow real-world ethnic and regional conventions, because the Sixth World is 2070s Earth — still recognizably our world, just heavily accelerated. Seattle has enormous Japanese corporate influence and a significant Native American population (thanks to the Native American Nations political realignment). Denver sits at a continental border. São Paulo mixes Portuguese colonial legacy with indigenous revival. A character's legal name carries all of that weight.
Street names are earned or assigned. They don't follow rules — they follow stories. The most common origin types:
- Incident names: The run that defined the rep. "Sparks" set a corporate server farm on fire. "Widow" walked out of an ambush that took her entire crew. These names are given by others and stick because they're true.
- Skill or tool names: What you bring to the table, compressed to one word. "Razorhand," "Coldwire," "Ghostsignal." Simple enough to say in the dark, specific enough to mean something to another runner.
- Contrast names: A two-meter troll who everyone calls "Tiny." A face who operates under "Mercy" despite having none. The Sixth World has a dark sense of humor and runners use it.
- Evolution names: A legal name that got compressed or corrupted through use. "Alejandro" became "Rey" became "Raygun" over three years of runs. The street name remembers the person even when the SIN doesn't.
Runner Archetypes and Naming Energy
What a runner does shapes how they're named — both what they name themselves and what the shadows end up calling them. Street samurai names tend toward hard consonants and physical imagery. Decker handles lean technical, glitchy, net-culture. Faces choose names that slide into memory without catching on anything. Shamans carry names that reference their totemic tradition or a defining spirit encounter.
Street samurai, adepts — names that project capability or warning
- Hard consonants, short syllables
- Physical imagery: metal, impact, edges
- Incident-based: named for what they survived or caused
- Examples: Ironjaw, Dreadnaught, Razorline, Stillpoint
Deckers, riggers, faces — names built for reputation without intimidation
- Technical jargon, net culture, smooth sounds
- Matrix handles that double as real-world aliases
- Names that open doors rather than close them
- Examples: Packetloss, Meshhead, Velvet, Coppermouth
Metatype and the Politics of Names
Metatype affects naming in ways that go beyond aesthetics. Elves in the Pacific Northwest sometimes carry Gaelic or Welsh names as cultural markers tied to Tír Tairngire — the elven nation in what used to be Oregon. Urban elves who grew up in the sprawl might have perfectly conventional human names and find the cultural affectation irritating.
Orks and trolls deal with active discrimination in the Sixth World — they're hired for muscle when corps need deniability, profiled by Lone Star, and paid less for the same work. This shapes naming in two directions: some sprawl orks adopt conventional human names to reduce friction, while ork-pride communities in places like Orkland (Oakland) embrace names that lean into their identity. Trolls, often isolated by their size, sometimes choose street names that are darkly ironic — huge figures called "Ghost" or "Whisper" — or deliberately imposing ones that lean into fear as a survival strategy.
Corporate Names vs. Street Names
Characters born inside a corporate arcology often have names that reflect their parent corporation's cultural identity. Aztechnology employees carry Latino names. Shiawase, the Japanese megacorp built on family values, expects traditional Japanese naming conventions from employee families. Saeder-Krupp, the German-dragon-controlled industrial giant, skews European.
When corp-born characters go shadow, they often make a deliberate choice about their legal name: keep it as a working SIN for accessing corp-adjacent spaces, burn it entirely, or construct a replacement. The street name is almost always a clean break — it's the identity that belongs to no employer and no database.
- Legal name reflects specific cultural background (not generically "ethnic")
- Street name has a plausible story behind it
- The two names create an interesting contrast or connection
- Fits the archetype without being a cliché (not every samurai is "Blade")
- Street names that are too clean or corporate-sounding
- Legal names with no cultural specificity ("John Smith")
- Handles that describe the archetype too on-the-nose ("HackerGuy")
- Names that could belong to any generic sci-fi setting
Deckers and the Matrix Handle Tradition
Deckers occupy a special place in Shadowrun naming culture because their street name and their matrix handle are often the same thing. In the early matrix underground, handles were identity — you were known by your code signature before anyone knew your face. By the 2070s, that tradition survives: a decker's matrix handle is their professional name in the shadows, chosen for how it sounds when a fixer recommends you to a Mr. Johnson.
Good matrix handles reference the experience of being in the matrix — the sensation of moving through data, ice (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics), and systems. They borrow from early internet culture, now decades old and mythologized. They compress complex technical concepts into one punchy word. "NULL_TRACE" (you can't find them). "Bitweaver" (they build what they need in real time). "Packetloss" (named for what happens to corp data when they're done with it).
Common Questions
Do Shadowrun characters use their real name on runs?
Almost never. A runner's legal name is a liability — it connects to a System Identification Number, a paper trail, a history. Most runners operate exclusively under their street name on jobs, and many fixers and Mr. Johnsons don't want to know the legal name anyway. Plausible deniability runs both directions. The street name is the professional identity; the legal name is either a useful tool for accessing legitimate systems or a liability to be burned if a run goes badly enough.
How do runner street names get chosen or assigned?
Both ways, and you rarely get to choose which one applies to you. Some runners pick their own handle when they start — a conscious brand decision about how they want to be known in the shadows. Many more find that the name gets assigned by circumstance: what you did on a run that went sideways, what a fixer called you when introducing you to a crew, what stuck after three people used the same phrase about you. The assigned names tend to be more accurate, which is why they tend to stick.
How does metatype affect a character's name in Shadowrun?
It affects the social context more than the naming conventions themselves. Elves in certain regions may carry cultural names tied to Tír Tairngire or Tír na nÓg, but sprawl elves often have completely conventional human names. Orks and trolls face discrimination that creates two opposing naming tendencies: assimilation (conventional names to avoid profiling) or reclamation (names that lean into metatype identity as a form of pride or warning). A troll named "Mercy" carries a very different message than a troll named "Bonecrusher" — and both are making a deliberate choice about how they want the world to see them.
