How to make a tag in minecraft

If you've spent a lot of time in Minecraft visiting and trading with a single village, you might grow attached to the NPCs in the town. Luckily, there's a great way to both make your NPCs feel special, and help them stand out from other similar characters.

Here's everything to know about name tags, rare Minecraft items that can help personalize your game — including where to find them and how to use them.

What are name tags in Minecraft?

Name tags are items that, when placed on an NPC, give them a unique name. The name you give will be displayed above their head whenever you get close and look at them. 

Quick tip: The name tag that appears above a player when playing Minecraft is different and unrelated to this. See our tutorial on how to change your username.

Naming an NPC also makes it so they'll never despawn. This means that if you rename a random zombie in a cave, for instance, that zombie will remain there forever, even if you leave and never come back. However, renamed NPCs can still die, at which point you'll lose the name tag.

Unlike most things in Minecraft, you can't actually craft a name tag. You'll have to find or trade for this one. This can take awhile if you don't know where to look.  

Fortunately, there's a few reliable locations to loot a tag, one surefire way to trade for them, and even a method involving fishing — although you'll need to be lucky.

How to get a name tag in Minecraft

Here are three different ways you can get a name tag:

Treasure chests

In both the Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft, you can loot chests for a name tag in the Dungeon, Mineshaft, Woodland mansion, or Ancient City structures, which will all spawn in your world. With the exception of Ancient Cities in the Bedrock edition, you have about a 30 to 40 percent chance of finding a name tag in the chests at any one of these locations.

In Bedrock, the console-friendly version of Minecraft, Name tags can also be found in a buried treasure chest with a similar rate of success. Buried treasure can be found with treasure maps, which themselves can be found in underwater shipwrecks.

Fishing

If trekking and searching for treasure chests isn't appealing, and you have a fishing rod in your inventory, you can also find the closest fishing spot and cast your reel. You can fish in any body of standing water, even if it's not connected to a river or ocean.

However the chances of getting treasure, much less a name tag, are slim. There's a five percent chance of catching treasure, and only a 0.8 percent chance of getting a name tag.

Quick tip: One way to improve your odds — use an Enchanted Book on your fishing pole with an anvil to give the tool the "Luck of the Sea" fishing enchantment, which ups your chances at catching treasure.

Trading

If emeralds are burning a hole in your virtual pocket, your best bet is trading them with a Librarian, who can be found in villages, for a name tag.

Keep trading until the Librarian reaches Master status, and you'll then be able to trade 19 or 20 emeralds for a name tag.

How to use a name tag in Minecraft

To use a name tag, follow these steps: 

Give the name tag a name

Before you can assign a name to a mob creature, you need to write the name you want onto the name tag. Luckily, you can do this with a simple anvil.

Quick tip: You can find anvils in most villages, or craft one. The crafting recipe is three iron blocks in the top row, one iron ingot in the center of the middle row, and three iron ingots in the bottom row.

1. Place your anvil and use it, which will open a menu. 

2. Drag your name tag into one of the left two slots near the top, and type in its new name in the text box at the top. 

3. When you're ready, drag the completed name tag on the right back into your inventory.

Naming a name tag will cost one experience level. If you don't have enough experience, go out and kill mobs until you level up.

Name the mob NPC

You're now ready to use the name tag to rename an NPC.

1. Find the NPC you want to rename. Again, this can be any NPC except for the Ender Dragon.

2. Put the name tag into one of your inventory's nine hotbar slots and hold it.

3. Use the name tag on the NPC. This will default to double-clicking on a mouse, or the left trigger on a controller.

Your name tag will disappear, and a name will appear above the NPC's head.

Although a creature won't despawn anymore once given a name tag, they can still be killed. Once a renamed NPC dies, their name will disappear.

If you're not sure what you want to name an NPC, check out some of the easter eggs below.

Quick tip: Every NPC can be renamed except for the Ender Dragon. You can't rename other players.

Minecraft name tag tricks

Try these unique name tag tricks: 

jeb_

Naming a sheep "jeb_" will make its wool rapidly change colors. Unfortunately, shearing this wool will only give you the sheep's original color.

Toast

Naming a rabbit "Toast" will give it a black-and-white skin themed after a user's missing rabbit.

Dinnerbone or Grumm

Naming any NPC "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" will flip them upside-down.

Johnny

Naming a vindicator "Johnny" will cause it to become aggressive with nearly every other NPC in the game, instead of just players, villagers, traders, and golems.

Name Tags are a powerful storytelling tool in Minecraft as by naming your creatures and mobs, you can create storylines that persist across all gameplay sessions. Each time you log in or leave an area in Minecraft, it is possible that creatures will despawn eventually due to a hard limit on the number of living creatures. When using Name Tags, this limit disappears and you are free to create a persistent world of your own design!

Unfortunately, marking an entire farm is not as simple as it might seem. No matter how many materials you have in Minecraft, you will always be looking for more Name Tags as they cannot be manually crafted. Players will have to explore their world to scavenge for these items. Alternatively, seeking rare Emeralds is another way to reliably source these useful items.

To craft a Name Tag in Minecraft, you will need the following:

To find Name Tags, the player must search Chests, Trade with Librarians, or Fish for a chance to find them.

In a Nutshell:

Search Dungeons and Chests for Name Tags until you find one. Alternatively, trade 20 emeralds for a Name Tag in a village.

Step 1- Find a Name Tag in a Chest.

Congratulations! The easiest part is behind us.

Name Tags are very useful if you are able to obtain one. However, to utilize a Name Tag, you will need to first have an Anvil on hand. Follow this guide for instructions for an Anvil. You will need a singular experience point to actually process the renaming of the tag.

Renaming a Name Tag

Now that you have actually renamed your tag, it is ready for usage. You can use Name Tags to give a permanent name to any creature in Minecraft (aside from the silverfish or wandering trader). This means that enemies, friendly animals, villagers, etc. can all be tracked using the Name Tag. The Name Tag also prevents mobs from despawning when you leave the area or reload the game. It means you can create stories with actual persistent and named characters in your world of Minecraft! Simply press the use key on a mob while holding the Name Tag to activate its effect.

Name Tag, applied!

Q. Can you use Name Tags to name your dogs?

Yes! Utilizing name tags is a great way to keep your dogs separate in Minecraft.

For only a tiny amount of player experience, you can create your very own storybook full of enemies, friends, villagers, pets, and more. In the Overworld, you might find that animals are rather skittish, even when tamed. While cooperating with animals is always a challenge in Minecraft, take your friendship to the next level by marking each animal with their own name, so you can begin to build a backstory and memories with them.