Nameplates Guide
How nameplates work in Gakuran — colors, year indicators, and Japanese text display.
By Gakuran Guide · Site Maintainer: CT
Last updated:
What Are Nameplates?
Nameplates display your character's last name in Japanese text above your character. The outline color of the nameplate indicates what year/grade you are in at Nishikata High School.
Blue Outline
First Year
Purple Outline
Second Year
Japanese Name Display
The text on your nameplate shows your character's last name in Japanese:
- —Known Japanese surnames are displayed in kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing).
- —Non-Japanese or unknown surnames are displayed in katakana (the Japanese syllabary used for foreign words).
- —There are 4,428 unique preset last names across all ethnicities in the game.
The script is therefore a small tell about your roll: a kanji surname means the game matched your last name against its Japanese preset list, while katakana means it did not. Two characters with the same displayed reading can render in different scripts depending on which preset they drew.
Reading a Nameplate in One Second
In a crowded server you rarely have time to read the text, so most players judge a nameplate on two cues only:
- 1.Outline colour first. Blue means First Year, purple means Second Year. That is the only information the colour carries — it says nothing about rank, strength or playtime.
- 2.Script second. Kanji versus katakana tells you whether the surname came from the Japanese preset pool, which is a rough hint about the ethnicity roll behind the character.
One counter-intuitive detail in the counts above: Japanese is the default 95% ethnicity roll yet has the smallest surname pool at 559 names, while European — a combined ~1% roll — has the largest at 838. Per-ethnicity name counts and roll odds are unrelated, so do not read a big pool as a common result.
Last Names by Ethnicity
Last names are preset per ethnicity and cannot be chosen manually:
Total: 4,428 unique preset last names
Nameplate Colors Video Guide
Watch a full breakdown of how nameplate colors and text work in Gakuran:
▶What this video adds — Radex Tips: All Nameplate Colors Explained▼
- What it covers. Every nameplate colour shown on screen, which is the one thing a text table cannot do: how each colour actually reads at a distance and against the other colours in a crowded server.
- How to use it. Use the video to learn to recognise a nameplate at a glance, and the table above to look up what it means. Recognition is the part that matters mid-fight.
- Caveat. The video is from 2026-07-07. If a colour you see in game does not appear in it, trust the table above, which is rebuilt from the current game and Trello board rather than from a recording.
Our own summary of what Radex Tips shows in ALL NAMEPLATE COLORS EXPLAINED in GAKURAN Roblox, uploaded 2026-07-07. We credit and link creator videos instead of republishing their caption tracks.
Nameplate FAQ
Can I change my nameplate color?
No — nameplate color is determined by your automatically generated year/grade and cannot be changed.
Does my nameplate affect gameplay?
No. Nameplates are purely cosmetic. Year/grade does not affect combat, height, or any game mechanics.
Where can I check my year/grade?
Your character's age, birthday, and grade are displayed in the Stats menu. These are generated on character creation and do not change.