How it works
The Saxon alphabet letters here are the runes of the Anglo-Saxon row: type a name and copy it rune for letter, with every rune named underneath. Some apps strip or block these characters, and screen readers may read them badly.
Read the full guide
Runes first, then Latin letters
Anglo saxon writing began in runes. Wikipedia records the row in use from the 5th century and calls it the futhorc, after its first six runes: feoh, ur, thorn, os, rad, cen. Missionaries brought the Latin alphabet at the end of the 6th century, and scribes kept two runes in it, thorn and wynn.
How your name is spelled
Each letter gets the rune scholars write with that letter. TH, NG, AE, EA and ST have one rune each. The runes had no J, V or Z, so those three borrow ger, feoh and sigel, and the list marks them as stand-ins.
- Runes have no capitals, so Edith and edith come out the same.
- The th in Anthony becomes thorn too, because a letter swap cannot hear.
Questions and answers
What letters were in the Saxon alphabet?
Two sets. Wikipedia records 28 runes at first and up to 34 later. The Old English Latin alphabet had about 24 letters: most of today's, plus æ, ð, þ and ƿ. J was not yet in use, and Q and Z were rare.
Is this a translation into Old English?
No. It changes letters, not language. Your words stay modern English, written in the runes the Anglo-Saxons used. A rune carver spelled by sound, so a real inscription of your name could look different.
Are these the same as Viking runes?
They are cousins. Both rows grew from the 24 runes of the Elder Futhark. The Anglo-Saxons added runes, while Scandinavia cut its row to 16, the Younger Futhark. The older row is on the ancient text generator.
Why do I see empty boxes?
The characters arrived and the font did not. These runes have been in Unicode since version 3.0, but a device shows them only if one of its fonts draws them. Whoever receives the text needs one too.