Ocean Name Generator

How oceans and seas are named

Sailors name water for the dangers and fortunes they have met on it. A sea can be called the Grey Sea because it is cold and foggy, or the Sea of Widows because of what it has done to the fishing towns. The longer names carry a story in the last words. Straits are named for the hazard of passing through them, and inland seas for the trade they carry, such as the Herring Sea or the Merchants' Gulf.

The largest oceans tend to have the most abstract names, because they are not part of anyone's daily life. People name them as great forces: the Endless Deep, the Western Ocean. Invented words such as Aurmere or Selthal give an ocean the dignity of an old tongue, and they work best when they sit beside plain words like Sea, Deep and Reach.

Naming a whole chart

On a chart, every sea has several names. The merchant fleet writes one, the pirates another and the folk who live on the coast a third. Choose which of them your viewpoint character would use, and let others disagree with them. Give each ocean a character as well as a name: an ocean called the Hungry Deep should have wrecks and ghost stories, and the Gentle Sound should be quiet water that schoolchildren paint. Let the names of straits, gulfs and bays follow their parent sea in some way, such as a shared word or a shared ruler, so the reader learns the map by sound. The cheapest and most effective touch is a sailor's nickname for a sea that is far more insulting than the official name.

Twenty example ocean names

• The Grey Ocean of Storms the cold ocean no ship crosses in winter.
• The Aurmere Ocean a vast western ocean beyond the known coasts.
• The Sea of Widows a fishing sea with a high loss of life.
• The Narrow Strait of Echoes a passage where sound carries for miles.
• The Endless Deep a name for the sea that sailors fear.
• The Merchants' Gulf a sheltered bay full of trading ships.
• The Silver Sea a calm inland sea with famous herring.
• Hugo's Drowned Strait named after a captain who did not return.
• The Sunless Ocean a polar water with long winters.
• The Pearl Basin a warm sea where divers work.
• The Bitter Narrows a channel with strong currents and many wrecks.
• The Selthal Sea an old name that nobody can translate.
• The Whispering Expanse of the Old Gods a sacred ocean beyond the horizon.
• The Pirates' Roads a stretch of water the navy avoids.
• The Eastern Sapphire Sea a bright warm sea with trade routes to the East.
• The Fog Race a strait where mist hides the rocks.
• The Lonely Reach an empty ocean between two rival continents.
• The Gentle Sound a harbour water used by children and boats.
• The Drowned Gulf of Kings a bay where an old capital sank.
• The Seven Winds Passage a strait famous for its unpredictable weather.