How to use these Christmas name ideas
A festive name pool should still work as a guessing game. The best prompts are recognisable across the room, distinctive enough to describe and memorable enough to return in later rounds.
For Celebrity Salad, mix these suggestions with names your group submits privately. You do not need every name to be Christmassy. A mostly normal celebrity pool with 20–30% festive names usually feels more natural than sixty versions of Santa.
Christmas film and TV characters
- Kevin McCallister
- Buddy the Elf
- The Grinch
- Ebenezer Scrooge
- George Bailey
- Clark Griswold
- Cindy Lou Who
- Jack Skellington
- Sally
- Oogie Boogie
- Ralphie Parker
- Kris Kringle
- John McClane
- Hans Gruber
- Mark Darcy
- Bridget Jones
- Paddington Bear
- Mr Bean
- Wallace
- Gromit
Christmas music names
- Mariah Carey
- Michael Bublé
- George Michael
- Andrew Ridgeley
- Elton John
- Ed Sheeran
- Ariana Grande
- Kelly Clarkson
- Leona Lewis
- Shakin' Stevens
- Slade
- Wizzard
- Brenda Lee
- Andy Williams
- Bing Crosby
Familiar festive faces
- David Attenborough
- Claudia Winkleman
- Gordon Ramsay
- Mary Berry
- Jamie Oliver
- Michael McIntyre
- Alan Carr
- Graham Norton
- Ant McPartlin
- Declan Donnelly
- Mo Gilligan
- Romesh Ranganathan
- Olivia Colman
- David Tennant
- Judi Dench
Easy festive wildcards
- Santa Claus
- Mrs Claus
- Rudolph
- Frosty the Snowman
- The Snowman
- The Nutcracker
- Father Christmas
- The Ghost of Christmas Past
- The Ghost of Christmas Present
- The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
Christmas Charades prompts beyond celebrity names
If you are playing ordinary Charades rather than Celebrity Salad, you can widen the pool to actions and objects. Good prompts include decorating a Christmas tree, wrapping a present, pulling a cracker, building a snowman, carving a turkey, ice skating, hanging a stocking, opening a difficult parcel and untangling fairy lights.
Celebrity Salad itself is designed around public figures and recognisable names, so keep the in-app Salad focused on people and characters rather than generic objects.
How hard should the names be?
People or characters almost everyone knows.
Recognisable once someone gives the right clue.
Funny curveballs rather than impossible trivia.
A festive game often spans more generations than an ordinary party. That makes difficulty balance more important, not less. A 17-year-old and a 70-year-old do not need identical pop-culture knowledge if the pool gives both of them enough footholds.
Five ways to make the festive pool better
- Mix eras. Use modern names, older music and familiar film characters.
- Avoid a single franchise. Ten characters from one film makes the game repetitive.
- Think about acting. Distinctive voices, jobs and mannerisms pay off in Act It.
- Let the group contribute. Private submissions create better surprises than a completely prewritten list.
- Keep it inclusive. Christmas flavour should not require religious knowledge to play.
For more general prompts, see our 100 celebrity name ideas. For the full seasonal plan, see Christmas party games.