Fantasy City Name Generator

How city names are usually built

Cities collect names the way they collect people: slowly, and from several sources. Old capitals tend to keep a long, formal name from an older language, with open vowels and a stately ending, such as Carathion. Harbour towns usually name themselves after what ships see: a rock, a bird, a tide mark, a fog bank. Fortresses take their names from what they do, which is why so many of them are some kind of watch or hold.

A nickname often runs beside the official name. The grand city of Velorium might be called the Lantern by every sailor who has seen it at night.

Keeping a map consistent

Pick one language for each region and take the city names from it. Coastal towns can share a family of sea words while inland cities share another family of stone and field words, and a conquered city can keep an older name beneath a newer one. Give each major city one fact a reader can see in the name, such as a river, a wall or a founder, and keep a short list so the same word does not name two different places. Say the names aloud: a city that is hard to say will be shortened by your readers, so offer the short form yourself.

Twenty example city names

• Carathion an old capital with a river of history.
• Velmorium a marble city with a long list of kings.
• Saltquay a harbour where the tide decides the market.
• Greywall a border fortress with a famous siege.
• Torandor grand and a little cold, a city of scholars.
• Gullhaven a fishing port that grew past its harbour.
• Ironspire a smiths' city with a furnace tower.
• Ishalis a trading capital in a warm country.
• Wreckmouth a port that earned its name the hard way.
• Black Crag a fortress carved into a cliff.
• Nimara a river city of bridges and bells.
• Lanternport a harbour that burns lights all night.
• Oathkeep a city founded on a treaty.
• Dorenna a soft name for a city of gardens.
• Port Marenna the colonial harbour of a great empire.
• Stormwatch a fortress above a dangerous coast.
• Kalium an ancient capital that lost its crown.
• Pearlreach a wealthy port of divers and merchants.
• The Free City of Zerathis an independent city that answers to no throne.
• Last Hold the final fortress before the wastes.