Moon Name Generator

How moons get their names

A moon is the one celestial body that everyone can see, so it gets a name from every kind of speaker. Villagers give it a folk name that describes what it looks like or what it does: the Pale Lantern, the Hunter's Eye, the Harvest Sickle. Scientists and navigators give it a survey name, usually an invented world name with a numeral, such as Veyra II. Priests and poets give it a name that belongs to a goddess or a story, often with a title attached.

The folk name is the most useful one for fiction because it comes with a view of the world. A farming people see a moon as a calendar and call it by the season. Sailors call it the Tide-Mother. A people that has lost something calls it the Weeping Moon. Choose the name from the speaker's daily life and the moon will feel like a part of the culture.

Keeping the sky consistent

If your world has more than one moon, give them related but distinct names. Two sisters, a pair of brothers or a mother and child offer an easy structure, and readers will remember them as a family. Let phases and positions drive the plot: a moon that is full during a festival or new during a war becomes a character, and the name should hint at that behaviour. Decide whether each culture has its own name and let characters disagree. A sailor, a priest and a scientist can each point at the same moon and say something different, and that gap tells readers how far apart those three worlds are. Keep one moon name ready for each speaker and use it consistently.

Twenty example moon names

• The Pale Lantern the village name for a small, faint moon.
• The Hunter's Eye a bright moon that hunters watch for.
• Veyra II the second moon of a surveyed planet.
• The Sailor's Weeping Mirror a moon that sailors believe weeps in storms.
• Aurmere the Pale, Keeper of Tides a priest's name for the great moon.
• The Harvest Sickle of the Barley a thin moon that marks the cutting of grain.
• Calloway Minor a small rocky moon with a mining base.
• The Sleeper's Door a dim moon that rises only in winter.
• Selvara, Mother of Wolves a hunting goddess made visible.
• The Smiling Coin a nickname for a lucky moon.
• The Watching Bone an old name for a white moon that never sets.
• Thalmere Prime, the Cold Beacon a colony moon with a lighthouse.
• The Younger Sister of the Sea a smaller moon locked in a dance with the first.
• The Crooked Fisherman a moon with a hook-shaped shadow.
• Orasel the Waking a moon that returns after a long absence.
• The Laughing Widow of the Low Fields a rural joke that became a name.
• Kessler Beta a surveyor's code for a captured asteroid.
• The Gentle Veil a moon behind permanent cloud.
• The Red Harvest Moon it turns red in the autumn smoke.
• Wenmar, Singer of the Deep a moon blamed for strange tides.