Where fantasy naming conventions come from
Almost every naming convention in fantasy has a real origin, and knowing it makes inventing your own names considerably easier than pressing a button until something sticks. This is where that material lives — the long-form articles below, plus a guide attached to each of the 77 generators on the site.
What these guides are for
There are two ways to get a name. You can take one from a generator, which takes three seconds and is the intended use of most of this site. Or you can work out why a particular kind of name sounds right, and then produce as many as you need on your own.
The second one is slower to learn and much faster afterwards, and it is what everything here is aimed at. The recurring finding across every convention covered on this site is that fantasy naming is far less arbitrary than it looks:
Dwarf names are genuinely medieval. The Dvergatal, a catalogue of dwarf names inside the Old Norse poem Völuspá, is where Tolkien took the dwarf names in The Hobbit — and Tolkien set the template most of the genre inherited. When a dwarf name sounds right, you are recognising Old Norse.
Angelic names run on a single Hebrew element. The -el in Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel is a divine name, which is why they rhyme and why the ending signals allegiance even to readers who have never studied it.
Goblin names are insults that stuck. The style descends from the English byname tradition, the same habit that turned medieval nicknames into surnames like Whitehead and Longshanks.
Vampire names are a disguise. The literary vampire has been an aristocrat since Polidori’s Lord Ruthven in 1819, and the name has to pass in a room full of people who would object.
None of that is decoration. Each one is a rule you can apply the next time you need a name and there is no generator for the thing you are naming.
Long-form articles
How to Name Everything in Your Fantasy World: A Worldbuilder’s System
The problem is not naming one thing, it is naming two hundred things so they sound like they came from the same place. Covers picking a sound palette before you pick names, using syllable length to carry rank, and why place names should record an event.
150+ Villain Names for Fantasy, D&D and Original Characters
A villain’s name has a job a hero’s name never has: it has to frighten people who have only heard it. Heroes are met; villains are rumoured. Sorted by the sound doing the work.
250+ OC Name Ideas by Genre
Hand-curated original-character names across fantasy, anime, modern, villain, sci-fi, royal and cute registers, with surname pairings and a set of tests for whether a name will survive being said out loud every session.
Where most of the writing actually lives
The articles above are the standalone pieces. The larger body of writing sits on the generator pages themselves, because that is where it is useful — next to the names it describes.
Each generator page sets out the organising idea behind that naming convention, then sorts the generator’s real pool by it, labelled pool-verified so you can tell the actual names from examples. A few of the more substantial ones:
Dwarf names and the Dvergatal · Why vampire surnames give the game away · Goblin names as insults that stuck · The Hebrew -el rule behind angel names · Fae names with real Celtic roots · Which elvish elements are actually Tolkien’s
The full generator list covers all 77, sorted by category.
Three rules that hold across every convention on this site
If you read nothing else here, these three are the ones that come up on almost every page.
1. The two halves of a compound name must do different jobs. This is the single most common failure in homemade fantasy names. Glitterspark Shimmerglow has four elements that all mean “bright”, so the name carries one piece of information wearing four coats. Thistle Moonshadow works because thistle is a concrete plant and moonshadow supplies the music. One half should be specific and physical; the other can be atmospheric.
2. The ending decides the species more than the opening does. A name closing on an open vowel reads as elvish almost regardless of what precedes it. A hard consonant close — -ax, -oth, -ok, -ik — reads as draconic, orcish or trollish. If a name you have written sounds wrong and you cannot say why, change the last syllable before you change anything else.
3. If it cannot be said at speed, it will be renamed. A name your game master stumbles over becomes “the dragon guy” within two sessions, and a name your reader cannot pronounce gets skipped over on the page. Apostrophe piles and consonant clusters with no vowel to land on both fail this test. Say the name out loud in a full sentence once, at normal speed. That is the whole check, and it catches most of what the other rules would have caught anyway.
Questions about the guides
What do these naming guides cover?
Where fantasy naming conventions actually come from, and how to apply them yourself. The standalone articles cover naming a whole world consistently, villain names, and original-character names by genre. Each of the 77 generator pages carries its own guide explaining that convention’s origin and sorting the generator’s real pool by it.
Do I have to read anything to use the generators?
No. Every generator page puts the button near the top and the writing underneath it. Take a name and leave, or stay and find out why that kind of name sounds the way it does. Both are the intended use.
What is the most useful single rule for inventing fantasy names?
That the two halves of a compound name must do different jobs. One half should name something concrete — a plant, a weather event, a body part — and the other supplies the sound. Names where both halves mean the same thing carry one piece of information wearing two coats, and that is the commonest failure in homemade fantasy names.
Why does a name sound elvish or orcish?
Mostly the ending. A close on an open vowel reads as elvish almost regardless of what comes before it, while a hard consonant close on -ax, -oth, -ok or -ik reads as draconic, orcish or trollish. If a name sounds wrong and you cannot say why, change the last syllable first.
Are the names in these guides the same as the ones in the generators?
Where a page lists a generator’s pool it says so and labels the names pool-verified, so you know they are the exact names the button produces. Examples written to illustrate a point are not labelled that way. You should never have to guess whether the site is quoting itself.
How often are new guides published?
Irregularly. The site is maintained by one person, and most of the writing effort goes into the guides attached to the generator pages rather than into standalone articles, because that is where the material is most useful — next to the names it describes.
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How to Name Everything in Your Fantasy World: A Worldbuilder’s System
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150+ Villain Names for Fantasy, D&D & Original Characters
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250+ OC Name Ideas by Genre (Fantasy, Anime, Modern & More)
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