Fantasy Name Generator

Seven cultures, seven sound systems

A fantasy name feels right when it sounds like it belongs to a people. Each culture here has its own grammar: its own stock of beginnings, middles and endings, its own rules for which letters may meet and its own surnames.

• Elven names are long and flowing, with paired vowels (ae, ia) and soft l, r and th.
• Dwarven names are short and hard, stressed on the first syllable, with clan and craft surnames.
• Orcish names are one or two blunt syllables, heavy on g, k and z, with deed-names such as a tusk-breaker's title.
• Human names come in three regional styles: northern, southern and coastal.
• Draconic names hiss and roll, with sh, x and rh, and long invented clan names.
• Infernal names sound classical but wrong, with z, ph and dark endings.
• Fae names are quick and light, built from l, s, f and w, with hedgerow surnames and seasonal courts.

How a fantasy name is put together

Every given name is a beginning, up to two middles and an ending chosen for the gender you asked for. The parts are joined with rules that stop the faults random generators are known for: no doubled vowel where two parts meet, no part that echoes the one before it, no syllable repeated twice in a row and no more consonants in a row than the culture allows. Every name is then checked against a blocklist of offensive words and of famous names from books, films and games, so you won't be handed a well-known elf from a novel.

This page's list opens with Coriss of Goldhollow (KOH-ris) and Malyr Smokethorn. The hint shows the syllables and the stressed one in capitals: a guide for reading aloud, not a rule.

Surnames that fit the culture

Surnames follow the same culture as the given name. Elves carry nature compounds or an "of House" name; dwarves a clan or a craft; orcs a deed or a clan epithet; humans an English-style place name or a noble house. The Fantasy Last Name Generator has every surname form for eight cultures, if you only need the family name.