Name plate UI
by eL3mus
Name plate UI shows a small overlay with the name, type and minimized model of a living entity when the player looks at it, and it works only on the client.
What it does
Hovering the crosshair over a living entity brings up a compact overlay that names the mob and its type. The overlay covers vanilla mob types, grouped by the vanilla ranking, so passive mobs, neutral mobs that stay calm until provoked, and hostile mobs each appear with their own category. Activation reaches living entities up to 15 blocks away.
The interface draws on the look of a survival shooter's hover prompts, where a character's name and faction appear once the crosshair rests on it, and the overlay follows that approach with a faction icon and faction name for non-player characters. Its placement can collide with chat, and the text has no background, which can make some labels hard to read. Customization options are limited in the current version.
Name plate UI is published for Forge 1.20.1 only. It is released under the MIT License, is not open source, and runs on the client alone, so servers and other players do not need it. The latest Forge file is 1.0.0, dated 2024-05-29.
Key features
Living entity overlay
A small panel shows the name, type and minimized model of the living entity under the crosshair.
Vanilla mob categories
Entities are sorted by the vanilla ranking, so passive, neutral and hostile mobs each get a distinct label.
Activation range
The overlay activates on living entities up to 15 blocks away and ignores anything beyond that distance.
Faction display
For non-player characters, the overlay adds a faction icon and faction name, following the hover model described above.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Use cases
Who it’s for: Players on Forge 1.20.1 who want to read entity names and categories at a glance on their own client. The mod suits single-player and multiplayer clients alike, since only the client runs it.
How it compares
Random Entity Names is server-side only, released under the MIT License, and targets Forge 1.20.1, so it changes names on the server rather than showing overlays on the client. livingbactery is a client and server mod for Forge 1.20.6, under All rights reserved, so it needs a different game version. Living At The Limit is also client and server for Forge 1.20.1, under All rights reserved, and both sides must run it.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name plate UI | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client-side only | 2024-05-29 |
| Random Entity Names | Forge | 1.20.1 | Server-side only | 2025-05-11 |
| livingbactery | Forge | 1.20.6 | Client and server | 2025-11-04 |
| Living At The Limit | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2026-02-22 |
Questions
Does Name plate UI need to be on the server?
Which Minecraft version does Name plate UI support?
Why is the text hard to read in some places?
In the catalog
Name plate UI is one of 11,058 Mobs mods on ModsFinder, and one of 6,527 Mobs mods for Forge. 34,764 mods support Minecraft 1.20.1.
Similar mods
What the author says
This is an overlay mod that gives a small overlay with a mob/living entity name, type and it's minimized model. The mod covers vanilla mobs and it's types are based on vanilla ranking too by which I mean that passive mobs are the ones that won't attack, neutral that upon getting provoked or meeting a condition and…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/name-plate-ui
- Owner
- eL3mus
- Published
- 2024-05-29
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2024-05-29
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15