Dwarf Name Generator

How dwarven names are usually built

Dwarf names are built for a people who work with stone and metal, and they sound it. The common pattern is short, with hard consonants (b, d, g, k, r, th) packed around a single vowel, and endings that close the name like a door: -grim, -rik, -mund, -dak. Female names often borrow longer, rounder endings such as -hild, -dis and -grid. Almost nothing flows; names are meant to be said at a forge.

The second half of the name is usually a clan name that describes the family's craft or an ancestor's deed: Ironhelm, Deepdelver, Anvilhand, Flintbeard. Clan names are the thing dwarves are proud of, and they are often more important than the personal name.

Making dwarven names feel like one people

Treat clan names as a living record. A clan called Deepdelver should have dug something deep, and its name should be wanted by someone else if the hold ever falls. Keep your clan words tied to the trades your hold actually practices: if there are no ships, there are no Waveshield clans. Reuse the same small stock of hard syllables for given names so that readers can hear the culture, and mark outsiders by the way their names break that sound. Let titles and honorifics follow a pattern too, such as Stonewarden for those who guard a gate and Anvil-master for those who run a forge. Consistent forms like these make a hold feel inhabited rather than invented for a single scene.

Twenty example dwarf names

• Borgrim Stonehelm a gate-warden whose helm is older than the hold.
• Dagny Anvilhand a smith who refuses to teach apprentices.
• Thrundak Deepdelver a miner whose clan found the lowest vein.
• Hildra Copperpick a surveyor with a sharp tongue.
• Kazmund Ironvein a lore-keeper who says little.
• Gunnhild Forgeborn her birth is a family legend.
• Dorrik Flintbeard a veteran with a short temper.
• Brenna Emberhold keeper of the great hearth.
• Rurgar a given name only, sturdy and brief.
• Vigdis feminine, hard-edged, a rival clan's heir.
• Morak a short name for a young soldier.
• Thorvik northern in feel, a caravan guard.
• Helga Granitehand a stonecutter who carves tombs.
• Karnak Boulderhelm a siege-engineer.
• Sigrun Steelbeard a clan matriarch with a long grudge.
• Bromdun Coalfoot a lamplighter in the deep halls.
• Freydis Runemantle an engraver of oaths.
• Gormund Axebreaker a warrior with a story about an axe.
• Norkin young and eager, a miner's apprentice.
• Ingrid Hammerhand a master of the great forge.