How to make a name tag in Minecraft

Aakrit Sharma
A dog and name tag in Minecraft

You can give your Minecraft world a personal touch by naming mobs and for that, you’ll need a name tag. Here’s every method to obtain a name tag in Minecraft.

You begin your Minecraft journey alone but with time, you’ll be able to tame a wide range of animals that will innocently follow you around. From dogs and cats to foxes and llamas, the sandbox game has many tameable mobs and unsurprisingly, players love naming them.

You cannot craft a name tag in Minecraft, but there are several ways to obtain it from the Overworld. In this guide on how to get a name tag in Minecraft, we’ll cover every reliable source in detail.

Group of llamas following a player

Ways to obtain a name tag in Minecraft

There are three major ways to get a name tag in Minecraft which include fishing, trading, and chests. Let’s take a deeper look at each method now:

Fishing

You need three sticks and two strings to craft a fishing rod in Minecraft. First, chop down some trees in the Overworld to get wooden logs and turn them into planks (just place the logs in any slot of the crafting GUI).

Then, add two planks vertically to any column of the crafting table and you’ll get sticks. The crafting recipe for sticks is also showcased in the image:

Crafting recipe for sticks in Minecraft

To get strings, find spiders in dark places with a light level of 0. You can also find spider spawners in dungeons and woodland mansions. Kill them to obtain strings.

Lastly, put three sticks diagonally in a crafting table and fill the remaining two blocks of the right-most column with strings. As a result, you’ll get a fishing rod:

Crafting recipe to make a fishing rod in Minecraft

The waiting game begins after you’ve crafted a fishing rod. Go near a water source and keep fishing until you get a name tag.

Name tag falls under the Treasure category in Mojang’s sandbox game and there’s a 5% chance of players catching a treasure through fishing. This implies that there’s a 0.75% chance of you obtaining a name tag through fishing. However, Enchantments like Lure 3 and Luck of the Sea 3 can significantly increase these odds.

Trading

Level up a Librarian to Master level (requires 250 XP). We recommend trading paper and books to speed up the process. This is important because a Master level Librarian trades name tags for 20 Emeralds.

Having said that, choose this method only if you’re willing to pay the price.

A Minecraft villager smiling

Chests

These Minecraft chests have the highest chance of containing a name tag:

  • Dungeon chest – 28.3%
  • Chest in a Mineshaft – 42.3%
  • Woodland Mansions chests – 28.3%

How to use a name tag in Minecraft

Follow these steps to use a name tag in Minecraft:

  1. Craft an anvil.
  2. Open the anvil’s GUI and put the empty name tag in the leftmost slot. Keep the second slot empty and type the desired name in the long bar above.
  3. If the name is available, you’ll get a labeled name tag in the box after the arrow.
  4. Add the labeled name tag to your inventory and go near the mob that you want to name. Click on the mob and a name will appear above them.

Mobs with name tags won’t despawn which explains why the item is so popular among players.

In case you don’t have an anvil, you can easily craft one with three iron blocks and four iron ingots. Place three iron blocks in the top row of the crafting table, an iron ingot in the central slot, and three iron ingots in the bottom-most row.

The crafting recipe for an anvil has been showcased in the image below:

Crafting recipe to make anvil in Minecraft

This was everything to know about name tags in Minecraft. For similar content on the sandbox title, check out how to hatch a dragon egg, the best armor enchantments, and how to find a village.

Image Credits: Mojang