How it works
- Add names. Type one name, or paste your class list with one name per line.
- Choose the handwriting your school teaches: print or NZ style handwriting.
- Pick a size and rows. The sheet on the right updates as you go.
- Download and print. Every name is its own page in one A4 PDF.
NZ style handwriting
New Zealand children learn a clear, simple print and then join their letters as they move through the junior school. The NZ style here is modelled on that school handwriting. Children learn their name best in the letters they see every day, so pick the style that matches your classroom.
Teaching a child to write their name
Capital first, then lower case
Children see their name with a capital letter and lower-case letters on their bag hook and their books. Type the name exactly as you want it practised, or set Capital letters to “Capital first”.
Little and often
A few rows a day works better than a whole page at once. Slip the sheet into a plastic sleeve and use a whiteboard marker to practise again.
In the New Zealand Curriculum
- Te WhārikiThe Mana reo | Communication strand includes children coming to recognise print symbols and use them with meaning; their own name is often the first.
- First 6 monthsNew entrants learn each letter and its sound, and are taught to form letters correctly.
- Year 1Letters written neatly with a good pencil grip.
Many children arrive at school able to spot their own name from their early learning service or kōhanga reo, but not yet able to form every letter. Tracing joins the two: the shape they already know, written the way their teacher will teach it.
Ask children to say the sound of each letter as they trace it, which links name writing with the phonics they are learning in the same weeks.
Summarised in our own words from Te Whāriki (2017), the early childhood curriculum, and the New Zealand Curriculum: English, Years 0–6 (2025).
