Dinosaur Names

Dinosaur Names is a free A to Z explorer of 141 well-known dinosaurs for kids and adults. Look up how to say a name, what it means, when the animal lived, what it ate, how long it was, where its fossils were found and who named it. It works in your browser on a computer, tablet or phone, with no download or sign-up.

What is in the list

The list covers non-avian dinosaurs only: 53 theropods (meat-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor and their relatives), 28 sauropods and their early relatives, 19 ornithopods and duck-billed dinosaurs, 14 horned ceratopsians, 12 armored ankylosaurs, 7 plated stegosaurs, 4 dome-headed pachycephalosaurs and a few early dinosaurs. Each one has a simple silhouette for its group, drawn for this tool.

Every fact on a card comes from that dinosaur’s English Wikipedia article, and each card links to its source. When the article does not give a value, the card says so instead of guessing. That is why a few cards have no diet or length, and about half have no pronunciation. Lengths and ages are shown as “about” because scientists give ranges and revise them as new fossils turn up.

How to use it

• Find a dinosaur: scroll the list, tap a letter in the A to Z bar, or type in the search box. Search matches names, name meanings, countries and groups, so “Mongolia”, “lizard” or “horned” all work.
• Filter and sort: narrow the list by period (Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous), diet, group, continent and size: small (under 3 m), medium (3 to 9 m), large (9 to 20 m) or giant (over 20 m). Sort A to Z, Z to A, oldest or youngest first, longest or shortest first, or by the year each was named.
• Open a card: tap a name to see its details. Use the arrows to step through the current list, the star to save it to Favorites, and Say it to hear the name read by your device’s voice, where the browser supports it.
• Compare: pick any two dinosaurs to see them drawn to the same scale, with length bars and a table of their facts.

The quizzes

Guess the dinosaur shows two clues, such as its group, period, diet, length or where it was found, and four names to choose from. Only one of the four fits every clue. A right answer with two clues scores 3 points. Each extra clue you ask for lowers the score to 2 and then 1, so a perfect round is 30.

Name meanings mixes two kinds of question: pick the dinosaur whose name means something like “roof-lizard”, or pick what a name such as Triceratops means. Each right answer is worth 1 point, out of 10.

After a round you see your score and a review of every question. Best scores, past rounds and favorites are saved in your browser.

Tips for learning dinosaur names

• Learn the word parts. Many names are built from Greek or Latin pieces. Saurus means lizard, names ending in ceratops mean some kind of horned face, and the raptor in Velociraptor comes from a Latin word for robber or plunderer. Once you know a few, names like Protoceratops (“first horned face”) start to explain themselves.
• Look for places and people. Albertosaurus is named for Alberta, Argentinosaurus for Argentina and Lambeosaurus for the paleontologist Lambe.
• Sort by length. Supersaurus has the longest estimate in the list, up to about 40 m. At the other end, the largest Anchiornis specimens were about 60 to 62 cm long.
• Sort by first named. Megalosaurus, named by Buckland in 1824, comes first. Some of the newest names in the list, such as Zuul and Patagotitan, date from 2017.

Want to play with a dinosaur next? Run as far as you can in Dino Run, or train your recall with Memory Match.

FAQ

Where do the facts come from?

From each dinosaur’s English Wikipedia article, checked in October 2026. Each card links to its article. Where articles give several estimates, the card shows the one the article presents as its main figure.

Why are pterosaurs and sea reptiles not in the list?

Animals such as Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Mosasaurus, Plesiosaurus and Ichthyosaurus are often called dinosaurs, but they are not. They sit in a separate “Often confused” section under the list, with what each animal really was. Dimetrodon is there too: it lived in the Permian, before the first dinosaurs.

How is the pronunciation written?

As simple sound-it-out spelling, with the stressed parts in capitals, such as tih-RAN-uh-SOR-uhs for Tyrannosaurus. It is based on the pronunciation given in the Wikipedia article. When the article gives none, the card says so.