Biographies & Memoirs Title Generator
Find a title for your memoir, or for the biography you've spent years researching, that sounds like a life and not a resume. Ideas built from the image, phrase or place a story keeps returning to.
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Mother Kept the Receipts
A daughter sorts forty years of her mother's paperwork
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Night Shift at St. Agnes: A Nurse's Memoir
Twelve years of overnight hospital nursing in Detroit
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What Do You Want on Your Pierogi?
Growing up above a family Polish deli in Buffalo
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Ida Brand, Who Flew the Mail
Biography of a forgotten 1920s airmail pilot
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Salt in the Gearbox
A fisherman's son on leaving his father's boat
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Two Languages for Grief
Mourning a parent in English and in Tagalog
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Ask Your Mother
Memoir of a family secret kept for three decades
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Ninth Grade, Again: A Teacher's First Year
Teaching at the high school she once dropped out of
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Kidney, Mine
Giving a kidney to a stranger, and what came after
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Brother, Sideways
A sister's memoir of growing up beside her nonverbal brother
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The Bookkeeper Who Joined the Circus
Biography of an accountant turned trapeze rigger
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Last Season at the Starlite
A family's final summer running their drive-in theater
Naming Biographies & Memoirs books: what works
Biographies and memoirs tell the stories of real people, their challenges, achievements, and legacies, offering a window into diverse human experiences.
Select titles that reflect the depth and complexity of the individual's life story, highlighting key aspects of their journey.
Title a memoir from one object or phrase
Many of the best memoir titles name a thing the life circles around. Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club both point at something specific from childhood. Look for the object, saying or place that shows up in every chapter of your draft.
Put the subject's name in a biography
Biography readers search by the person. Ron Chernow titled his Grant book simply Grant, and Robert Caro's The Power Broker names Robert Moses in its subtitle. If your subject is little known, lead with a hook and let the subtitle carry the name.
Let the subtitle frame the story
A subtitle tells the reader what kind of true story this is. Roxane Gay's Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body uses one hard word, then the subtitle supplies the subject. Kiese Laymon paired Heavy with 'An American Memoir', which widens it from one family to a country.
Skip the big life words
Rising, unbroken, becoming, survivor and phoenix are already crowded on this shelf, and some are famous titles. They describe a shape every memoir has. A concrete detail from your life is the one thing no other memoir can claim.
Well-known Biographies & Memoirs titles
Titles that already work in this genre. Read them for shape and length: how many words, how much they give away, what they leave out.
| Title | Author | Published |
|---|---|---|
| The Diary of a Young Girl | Anne Frank | 1947 |
| Long Walk to Freedom | Nelson Mandela | 1994 |
| Educated | Tara Westover | 2018 |
| Becoming | Michelle Obama | 2018 |
| The Glass Castle | Jeannette Walls | 2005 |
| Wild | Cheryl Strayed | 2012 |
| Night | Elie Wiesel | 1956 |
| Steve Jobs | Walter Isaacson | 2011 |
| Into the Wild | Jon Krakauer | 1996 |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou | 1969 |
| Unbroken | Laura Hillenbrand | 2010 |
| Eat, Pray, Love | Elizabeth Gilbert | 2006 |
| The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot | 2010 |
| The Wright Brothers | David McCullough | 2015 |
| Alexander Hamilton | Ron Chernow | 2004 |
| The Autobiography of Malcolm X | Malcolm X | 1965 |
| Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo | Hayden Herrera | 1983 |
| Bossypants | Tina Fey | 2011 |
| Yes Please | Amy Poehler | 2014 |
| Born a Crime | Trevor Noah | 2016 |
Art, Architecture, & PhotographyPhotobooks, architecture monographs, criticism and how-to-draw manuals all share this shelf, and each one names itself differently.
Astrology, Divination & TarotName your tarot guide, birth-chart workbook or rune handbook.
Business & InvestingBusiness books live or die on a short title and a subtitle that states the promise.
Cooking, Food & WineA cookbook title has to tell a hungry browser what's for dinner and whose kitchen they're in.
Crafts & HobbiesKnitters, quilters, potters and whittlers all scan the shelf for their own craft first.
Current Affairs & PoliticsPolitical books argue, report or confess, and the title has to say which.
Diet, Health, & FitnessName your training plan, healthy cookbook or movement guide with a title that says what the reader will actually do.
Education & ReferenceTextbooks, handbooks, dictionaries and teaching guides need titles that tell a student or teacher exactly what's inside.
EngineeringEngineering books range from bridge histories to circuit design manuals, and their titles split the same way.
HistoryHistory titles usually make a promise twice: once in a short title that sets a scene, and again in a subtitle that names the period and the stakes.
Home & GardenGardeners shop for their conditions and decorators shop for a feeling.
HumorA funny book's title is its first joke, and readers judge the whole book by it.
Music, Film, & Performing ArtsRock memoirs, film criticism, acting manuals and theater histories each borrow from the art they cover.
NatureNature books are usually about one bird, one shore, one forest, watched closely.
New Age & Alternative BeliefsTitles for books on energy work, manifestation, crystals, channeling and the inner life.
Parenting & FamilyParents shop for these books at 2 a.m.
PetsTitles for dog training manuals, cat behavior guides, rabbit and reptile care, and the memoir about the dog who changed everything.
PhilosophyTitles for books that ask how to live, what we owe each other, and whether we can know anything at all.
Politics & Political ScienceTitles for books on elections, institutions, policy fights and the ideas behind them.
ReligionTitles for devotionals, Bible studies, theology, faith memoirs and books on Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu practice.
Role Playing & Fantasy GamesTitles for core rulebooks, setting sourcebooks, adventure modules, game master advice and histories of the hobby.
ScienceTitles for popular science on genes, galaxies, microbes, the brain and the people who study them.
Computers & TechnologyTitles for programming guides, engineering handbooks, security books and histories of the industry.
Self-Help & RelationshipsTitles for books on habits, confidence, boundaries, dating, marriage and recovering from hard years.
Social SciencesTitles for books on why people behave, gather, trade and believe as they do.
SportsTitles for athlete memoirs, season-long team stories, coaching manuals and histories of the game.
Study Aids & Test PrepTitles for exam prep books, study guides, flashcard sets and revision workbooks.
True CrimeTitles for books on murders, frauds, cold cases and the investigators who wouldn't let go.
TravelTitles for travel memoirs, walking books, road trips, food travel and practical guidebooks.
WeddingsTitles for wedding planners, budget guides, etiquette books, toast and vow helpers, and memoirs of a big day gone sideways.
Women's StudiesTitles for feminist essays, women's history, gender research and memoirs about women's work, bodies and power.
A plot, a first scene, a shelf
Questions about Biographies & Memoirs titles
Should my memoir title include 'A Memoir'?
It's common in the subtitle, and it's useful when the main title could pass for a novel. It tells booksellers where to shelve the book and tells readers the story is true. If your subtitle already makes that obvious, you can leave it off.
How is a memoir title different from an autobiography title?
An autobiography covers a whole life, so its title is often the person's name or a broad phrase. A memoir covers one period or theme (a marriage, an illness, a job), so its title can be narrower and more personal. Title for the slice you actually wrote.
Should I put my own name in my memoir title?
Only if readers already know it. For a debut memoir, your name means nothing yet in a search bar, so a vivid title and a clear subtitle will do more. Your name belongs on the cover as the author either way.
A title deserves a book.
Put it on a cover, write the first chapter under it, and see if it holds.
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