1. 1

    Gather the necessary materials for an anvil. You'll need an anvil to customize your name tag later. To craft an anvil, you will need the following:

    • Three iron blocks - Each iron block requires nine iron ingots, for a total of twenty-seven iron ingots needed.
    • Four iron ingots - These bars bring the iron total to thirty-one.
    • You can create iron ingots by adding iron ore, which is the grey stone with orange-brown spots, into a furnace that has coal in it.
  2. 2

    Open your crafting table. It will open to a three-by-three grid.

    • If you haven't yet crafted a crafting table, you can do so by placing a plank of wood in each of your inventory's four crafting slots.

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  3. 3

    Create an anvil. To do so, you'll place the three iron blocks in the top row of the crafting table grid, three of the four iron ingots along the bottom row of the grid, and the final iron ingots in the center of the grid. Take the completed anvil from the slot on the left.

    • On the PE version of Minecraft, tap the black anvil icon on the left side of the screen.
    • On the console version of Minecraft, select the anvil icon in the "Structures" tab.
  4. 4

    Understand that you can't craft name tags. You can only gather name tags in one of three ways: fishing, trading, and looting chests. [1]

  5. 5

    Craft a fishing rod. You'll need three sticks and two pieces of string to do so.

    • You can also combine two damaged fishing poles to craft a working pole.
  6. 6

    Fish until you reel in a name tag. To fish, you'll cast out a line by right-clicking (or tapping, or pressing the left trigger) while facing a body of water with your fishing pole equipped. When your pole's bobber dips below the surface of the water and you hear a splashing noise, you'll press the "Cast" button again.

    • You'll likely catch a lot of fish and other junk before you reel in a name tag, since name tags are fairly rare.
    • The Luck of the Sea enchantment can help.
  7. 7

    Speak to a villager about name tags. Villages are randomly generated structures situated around Minecraft's world. If you know of a village's location and you have plenty of emeralds, it may be faster for you to purchase a name tag than it is to fish for one.

    • To speak to a villager, face them and then right-click, tap, or press the left trigger.
  8. 8

    Loot a dungeon, mineshaft, or woodland mansion. Chests inside of these areas have a reasonably high chance of producing a name tag. Since these structures are randomly generated, this method of acquiring name tags is incredibly inefficient (and dangerous.

    • You can cheat by using the locate command to search for structures.

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  1. 1

    Make sure you're at least level one. Your experience level, which is the green number near the bottom of your screen, must be at least one in order for you to craft a custom name tag.

  2. 2

    Place your anvil on the ground. It will make a loud "clank" noise when you do so.

  3. 3

    Equip your name tag. To do so, open your inventory and move the tag to your character's hotbar, then select it. The tag will appear in your character's hand.

  4. 4

    Select the anvil. This will open the anvil's crafting window with your name tag in place.

  5. 5

    Enter a name for your name tag. You'll do this in the "Name" field at the top of the anvil's window.

    • On console editions, you'll first have to select the "Name" field and press A or X' .
  6. 6

    Select the name tag. Doing so will place it in your inventory.

  7. 7

    Equip your custom name tag. Once you see it in your hand, you're ready to assign a name to a mob.

    • On console editions of Minecraft, you can simply select the tag and press Y or Δ .
  8. 8

    Locate an animal or a monster. You'll want to take care whilst naming a hostile mob (e.g., a zombie), but naming animals like sheep or cows is a harmless task.

  9. 9

    Face a mob and select them. As long as the name tag is in your hand, doing so will place a text box with your name tag's phrase in it above the mob's head.

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Add New Question

  • Question

    How do I get name tags?

    Community Answer

    Librarian villagers trade name tags for 20–22 emeralds a piece as part of their tier 6 trades. Name tags can be caught from fishing as part of the treasure category. Name tags can be found in 29.0% of dungeon chests and 42.3% of chest minecarts in abandoned mine shafts in stacks of one.

  • Question

    How do I name a mob in Minecraft Pocket Edition?

    Gabby

    Get a name tag, put a name on it in the anvil, then go up to the mob and a 'name' button should appear.

  • Question

    How do I name a villager?

    Community Answer

    Rename a spawn villager egg (this can be obtained in creative mode) with an anvil, then spawn the villager.

  • Question

    How can I name a wolf/dog?

    Community Answer

    Go in your menu (creative) and get a name tag. Look up the recipe (survival) for a name tag. This works for all mobs (tame cows, sheep, etc.).

  • Question

    Does the name of the mob appear above it even when you are not holding a name tag?

    Karianna Wood

    Karianna Wood

    Community Answer

    Yes.

  • Question

    Can I use this on villagers?

    Community Answer

    Yes you can. Use it with the name tag and anvil. Combine the name tag within the villager's egg together and it will work.

  • Question

    How do I name a dog in the Xbox one?

    Community Answer

    Take a name tag, use an anvil and name your tame dog. It only works with tame ones.

  • Question

    Can I name a player with a name tag?

    Community Answer

    No, but the player can change their nameplate to something else if they would like.

  • Question

    How do I remove a name tag from a horse?

    Gabby

    You can rename the horse, but you can't remove the name tag.

  • Question

    Can I do this in creative?

    Community Answer

    Yes, you can. Click on the anvil, get a name tag, choose one of the repair boxes and name the tag. Then you hover over the creature and click 'name'.

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  • It is possible to change your name tag's text if you haven't used it on a mob yet.

  • Attempting to name a mob using an unformatted name tag won't work.

  • Once you name a hostile mob, it won't despawn, although it can still die.

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References

About This Article

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 203,179 times.

Reader Success Stories

  • TheSpiritTheWolf

    TheSpiritTheWolf

    May 19, 2017

    "I love it! It helped me; I could not remember what to use to use a name tag and well, it was an anvil!"

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