Continent Name Generator

How continent names are built

Real continents were named by explorers, geographers and sometimes by guesswork, and most of the names are older than the maps that carry them. That is a useful model for fiction. A continent name is usually a single word with a long, open ending such as -ia, -ara or -land, because it has to sound big. It is often borrowed from the first people the mapmakers met, or from a mythic figure, and then stretched to cover land nobody had seen.

The other approach is a descriptive title: The Sundered Crown, The Northern Reach, The Salt Shield. This reads like a nickname that stuck, and it works well when the continent is known more for its shape or its history than for its people.

Making continents work as a set

If your world has more than one continent, vary the names enough that readers can tell them apart on a map, but keep one family resemblance. Two continents with the same suffix will read as neighbours, and two with unrelated sounds will read as strangers. Avoid starting every continent with the same letter. Remember who named each one: a continent called Aldoria by its own people may be the Western Wilds to sailors, and both names can appear on one map. Keep the name short enough to fit across a coastline in capital letters.

Twenty example continent names

• Valdorra a wide continent of river kingdoms.
• The Sundered Crown a continent split by an old civil war.
• Eskaria a cold continent of mountain clans.
• The Salt Shield a curved landmass guarding a warm sea.
• Thornmark a hard continent of dense forests.
• Northern Vael the half of a continent the rest forgot.
• Mirenor a green continent of small proud kingdoms.
• The Hollow Reach a mostly empty plain with a few great cities.
• Orsendal a continent famous for its cold harbours.
• The Continent of Calavar what the empire calls the lands it maps.
• Tyranth a hot continent of deserts and old ruins.
• Lowen a flat, wet land with many rivers.
• The Amber Spine a long mountain continent with one pass.
• Selmaria a trading continent with many ports.
• Greater Dunmark a northern mainland with a crowded coast.
• The Wandering Wilds wild land that sailors cannot chart twice.
• Aurelia a gold-rich continent that everyone wants.
• Brenhald a rugged old land of hill forts.
• The Last Shore the edge of the known world.
• Ovarenne an island continent with its own customs.