The unsteady laminar magnetohydrodynamics(MHD) boundary layer flow and heat transfer of nanofluids over an accelerating convectively heated stretching sheet are numerically studied in the presence of a transverse magnetic field with heat source/sink. The unsteady governing equations are solved by a shooting method with the Runge-KuttaFehlberg scheme. Three different types of water based nanofluids, containing copper, aluminium oxide, and titanium dioxide, are taken into consideration. The effects of the pertinent parameters on the fluid velocity, the temperature, the entropy generation number, the Bejan number, the shear stress, and the heat transfer rate at the sheet surface are graphically and quantitatively discussed in detail. A comparison of the entropy generation due to the heat transfer and the fluid friction is made with the help of the Bejan number. It is observed that the presence of the metallic nanoparticles creates more entropy in the nanofluid flow than in the regular fluid flow.