How tabaxi names work in 5e
Tabaxi names break every rule the other races follow, and they do it beautifully. Each tabaxi has a single name, and that name is a full phrase drawn from clan tradition, an omen, or an event: Cloud on the Mountaintop, Five Timber, Jade Shoe. Complex ideas compressed into images. In daily life the phrase collapses into a short form, so Cloud on the Mountaintop simply goes by Cloud. Clans take their names from geographic features near the clan's home, like Snoring Mountain or Distant Rain.
Reading a phrase name
A tabaxi phrase name usually works like a tiny poem with a secret meaning. The clan elders who chose it may have been recording a dream, marking the weather at a birth, or making a prophecy nobody has decoded yet. When you roll names above, you will get the full phrase plus an implied nickname, and the gap between them is pure flavor. A bard named Burning Bridge who insists everyone call her Bridge has already raised a question worth answering at the table.
Playing the curious cat
Tabaxi culture prizes curiosity, stories, and shiny fascinating things, and the naming tradition feeds all three. Your tabaxi knows the story behind their name, and other characters will eventually ask for it, so write that story before the campaign starts. Was the omen accurate? Does your monk live up to the name or sideways to it? Roll until a phrase name makes you want to explain it. That impulse to explain is exactly the tabaxi talking.
Choosing the short form
The nickname rarely takes the first word of the phrase by default. Cloud on the Mountaintop goes by Cloud, but Five Timber might go by Timber, and Jade Shoe by Jade, whichever word carries the image. When you roll a phrase above, say it out loud and keep the word that survives being shouted across a tavern. That word is the name; the full phrase is the story it comes from.
Sample names from this generator's tabaxi list: Cloud on the Mountaintop, Five Timber, Allilapis, Ashen Rock, with clan or family names like Of the Jungle and Of the Cliff. Roll above for the full range, and click any result to copy it.