How To Pick A Graffiti Tag Name!
Picking a tag name can be a daunting task for aspiring artists and writers so today I want to give you 3 tips that will help you pick a graffiti tag name! If you’d prefer a video format, you can check out the video above "How To Pick A Graffiti Tag Name”.
Ok so to make up a tag name, begin by writing the whole alphabet on a paper. No need to be fancy here, just write the letters as you normally would in print font. Once you’ve written out all the letters, put a circle around the letters you think you’ll enjoy. Maybe you like the look of the letter, maybe the letter just seems fun to you, whatever the reason is, if you like it, circle it. At this stage, don’t concern yourself with how easy or hard a letter is otherwise you’ll end up with a name you’ll hate later on. Right now, as amateurs, we don’t have enough knowledge of letters to know what is truly hard or easy for us, so any preconceptions arent going to be accurate.
Now that we have our favorite letters circled, go ahead and put a square, or any other shape around letters you don’t mind too much. These letters are going to give you some variety with your potential names, and that’s the next step here. Using the letters you marked with circles and squares, try to make as many names as possible. Don’t worry about if any of these names are taken, just focus on getting names on the page. Try to aim for names around 3 -6 letters long. While 2 and 7-letter names are fine, they are much harder to use and as a result, much more rare to see.
This early on, feel free to swap between names, and as you become more involved in the graffiti community, you’ll learn more and more about the legends in graffiti. If you happen to be using the name of a legend, then simply change it, but do know, most people, even famous graffiti artists are not legends. Fame isn’t the only requirement to be a legend in graffiti, you have to change graffiti on a global scale, and unless they’ve don’t that then they’re not a legend.
The second way to get a name is extremely simple, use a nickname. Oftentimes, family, friends, and people at school or work, will call us various names that are normally some kind of inside joke or term of endearment. These names work perfectly for graffiti, in fact, many graffiti artists have gotten their names this way. I mean, to be fair, some graffiti artists even go as far as to use their real name but that’s not nearly as common for obvious reasons haha. An extension of using a nickname that I’ve seen in the past decade is kids using their gammer tags as their tag name. That’s never something I would have seen coming, but hey it’s a form of a nickname and it works for some, so try any and all of these options to come up with a name if you really need to.
Our last method is a bit rare, and would require that you already have friends in graffiti. Maybe you hang around graffiti artists but don’t do graffiti, or maybe you a year or two in graffiti without a solid name, an experienced veteran might pass their name onto you, or they might make a name for you and give it to you. This isn’t quite the same as when other amateurs or nongraffiti artists make a name for you as those names tend to be more organically made, and there are plenty of positives to that). It used to be more common years back for artists to pass their names down, and this was seen as passing the torch along, keeping the legacy alive. Along with this, the artist would sometimes even pass down styles to you. This might be two of the greatest honors in graffiti.
Now if you’d like more information about making a graffiti tag name, or if you’d like tag name ideas, check out this article we made.
If you’re looking to learn the basics of graffiti then check out our brand new book The Ultimate Graffiti Guide Book Part 1-Fundamentals where you’ll learn all of graffiti’s basics in an easy-to-follow book. By the end of it you’ll fully understand how to find your style, and how to keep progressing for the rest of your graffiti journey.
