Galaxy Name Generator

How galaxies get their names

Real galaxies are mostly numbers, but a story needs something a character can say out loud. Three kinds of name work. A poetic name is what the people living in it call it: the Silver Wheel, the Veil of Embers. A survey name is what the people who mapped it wrote on the chart, usually a surname plus a shape word, such as the Calloway Spiral. An alien name is what the first inhabitants called it, written in the sounds of their language.

Pick the kind to suit your viewpoint. A human farmer on a colony world will use a poetic name, an admiral will use the survey name, and a visitor from beyond the rim will mispronounce both. The scale of a galaxy means that few characters will have seen more than a sliver of it, so the name works as a promise of distance.

Keeping a galaxy name useful

A galaxy is the biggest container for names in your setting, so choose one with room for the smaller ones. If the galaxy is called the Silver Wheel, sectors can be spokes, rims and hubs, and nobody will have to learn new vocabulary. A survey name suggests catalogue labels for stars and planets; an alien name suggests that star names will be hard to say and that a human translation exists. Keep the number of galaxies small. Most stories happen in one, and mentioning a second only works when the first is vivid. Decide who named it, when and why, and mention the gap between official and common names once, early. After that, let characters use the short form, which is almost always the one a reader remembers.

Twenty example galaxy names

• The Silver Wheel the home galaxy of a hopeful, crowded civilisation.
• The Veil of Embers a dusty galaxy full of young red stars.
• Calloway Spiral named after the first survey captain to chart it.
• The Quiet Reach of the Sleepers an empty edge where dormant ships still drift.
• Xeloran Dominion a rival galaxy with a hard, alien name.
• Vance's Drift a lonely arm named for a lost colony ship.
• The Hollow Lens a galaxy with a vast dark centre.
• The Weeping Garden of Lost Suns where a thousand stars burned out at once.
• Aurmere Spiral II a second spiral beside the first.
• The Last Road the final galaxy before the great void.
• The Pale Ring a thin ring of ancient stars.
• The Okafor Wake a stream of stars torn out of a merging galaxy.
• Ulvaran-Thos two galaxies sharing one alien name.
• The Hungry Eye a galaxy with an active, devouring core.
• The Open Bar a galaxy whose bright bar is a landmark for pilots.
• Thalmere Complex a survey code that has become a household word.
• The Amber Current a stream of warm old stars.
• The Furnace of the Wanderers a bright, crowded centre full of industry.
• The Distant Hearth a faraway galaxy that is home for exiles.
• The Broken Road a trade route through a ruined spiral.