By Maya Chen, lettering designer and type educator · Checked by Jordan Hale · · How we review content
Key facts
- This section covers fifty common first names, each shown in one traditional school cursive model with handwriting guide lines.
- Every name page explains the capital, the joins that occur in the name, the tricky spots, signature advice and a printable practice sheet.
- Capitals differ most between school models such as Zaner-Bloser, D'Nealian and Palmer, while the joins are very similar.
- A signature is a personal mark that usually simplifies the name, so learn to write the name clearly before simplifying it.
- The name pages give no meanings, origins or popularity figures, because those claims need sources.
Why practise names in cursive?
Most people want to write their own name in cursive long before they want to write any other word. That is a good instinct. A name is short enough to repeat many times on one page, personal enough to keep you motivated, and it contains real joins, so you practise the part of cursive that single letters never teach: the connection between one letter and the next.
Names also have a feature that ordinary words lack. They start with a capital letter, and the capital often behaves differently from the lowercase letters after it. In traditional cursive some capitals connect to the next letter and some do not. Whether the first letter of your name joins or stands apart changes how the whole name flows, and each page below says which it is.
What does each name page cover?
Every page is written for that name, not filled in from a template. You will find:
- The name in school cursive with handwriting guide lines, so you can see the height of each letter against the baseline and midline.
- The capital letter, with how it is formed and whether it joins the next letter.
- The joins that actually occur in the name, such as the pair of letters in the middle that people tend to get wrong.
- Tricky spots, the one or two places a name tends to go wrong, and how to fix them.
- Signature advice for turning the careful version into something fast, without losing legibility.
- A printable practice sheet with the name to trace, copy and write.
- Copy-and-paste cursive text for the name, plus a PNG download.
We do not include meanings, origins or popularity figures for names. Those claims need sources, and this site is about how names are written, not where they come from.
How do I practise a name?
Write the name slowly, five times, on lined paper. Keep every letter on the baseline and make the tall letters about twice the height of the short ones. Look at the whole line and not at single letters: are the gaps between letters even? Is the slant the same from start to finish? Mark the worst join with a pencil dot and write that pair on its own ten times, then go back to the full name.
If a join feels wrong, the answer is usually in the cursive joins guide, which groups the connections into a few types. For a letter you do not know yet, go to the cursive letters A to Z.
What if my name is not listed?
The list covers fifty common first names, so yours may not be here. Use the cursive name generator to see any name in cursive and print a sheet for it, the cursive signature generator to try it as a signature, and the cursive worksheets for lined practice pages. You can also practise the letters in your name one at a time, and then follow the joins between them using the pages for similar names. A name with the same letter pairs, such as the ll in Ella and Isabella, shares the same difficulty. Whichever name you choose, names in cursive are the most motivating way to practise real joins.