Alien Name Generator

How alien names are usually built

An alien name should come from a mouth that is not ours. Guttural species favour stops and throat sounds, like Kraxul. Melodic species chain open vowels and liquids, as in Illurinae. Clicking and buzzing species use clusters and breaks that humans can only approximate, so the apostrophe shows a pause or a click in K'ezzt.

Readers need something to hold. Give every alien a name that can be said in a breath and a short form humans use, since first-contact crews always shorten what they cannot pronounce.

Giving a species its own voice

Pick a sound palette per species, including the sounds it never uses, and keep to it across every name. A species without lips has no b or m. A species that sings might change a name by mood. Decide how the species writes and says its names, because the human spelling is only a translation. Let different crews spell the same name in different ways and let a diplomat complain about it. Keep a glossary with the native form, the common form and the meaning, so the cast does not drift toward human names halfway through a book.

Twenty example alien names

• Kraxul a warrior with a voice like a landslide.
• Illurinae a singer-diplomat whose name is half a song.
• K'ezzt a clicking trader from a hive world.
• Vorak a short, hard name for a pilot.
• Saelmaei a gentle historian.
• Tz'ikrr a scout that prefers silence.
• Thuloth a heavy name for a tribal elder.
• Noolunan a melodic species' first ambassador.
• X'arik an engineer whose clicks confuse translators.
• Grahrek a bounty hunter with a bad reputation.
• Yliselai a poet of a floating people.
• Q'ulkk a hive guardian with one purpose.
• Zharagh a captain of a raider fleet.
• Oomvian a philosopher who speaks in questions.
• Vh'otzzt a negotiator who counts every pause.
• Mogax a mechanic with strong opinions.
• Ushemaion an oracle that reads a star chart like a letter.
• Zr'ezrr a swift courier.
• Dreztul a tribal judge.
• Aelrisai a gentle shepherd of floating herds.