Alien Name Generator
This page opens the fantasy name generator on its Alien style, so the first grid is alien names however you last left the tool. The alien set is 44 stems written for this style and used by no other style here, and it is built to sound like a mouth shaped differently to ours: sszi, kthe, pshe, dziu, nruu and qwora sit beside aku, nyoka and rukka, and every letter of the alphabet starts at least one stem, q and x included. Two rules give the names their shape. Alien is one of the harsh styles, so a seam that stacks three consonants or runs two different vowels together is kept rather than thrown back, and a join is only drawn again when it would put the same letter on both sides or repeat a part already used. And every join picks from three joiners, two of which are an apostrophe, which is why about a third of short names and nearly all long ones carry one: Kuru'ika, Zho'ekri'ari, Qwora'rhezu'mexu. Length changes the invented word itself here. Short is a single stem, so about half of its names come back bare, Chok, Iqo, Dhomu. Medium joins two stems, Long joins three. A prefix, ai or zho, lands on about one name in six, and one of four endings, ari, eth, ux or ika, on about one in three. On Medium and Long a designation can follow the name, eight written phrases from Broodkin and Third of Many to Voice of the Hollow Star, on about a third of medium draws and half of long ones. The line under each name is a reading cue cut at the joins the generator made, with one syllable in capitals for the stress, so Zho'rukka'eth reads zho-RUK-ka-eth and the plain English of a designation is left out rather than guessed at. Up to a hundred names a press, a star to keep the ones you want, a seed word to make a run repeatable, and nothing you type is uploaded.
Building names
The chips choose the style, and each one is a different syllable set: Alien builds character names. Type a seed word to make a run repeatable, or leave it empty for a fresh set every press. The line under each name is a reading cue for the invented word the name is built on, cut at the joins the generator used.
Common questions
- Why do so many of these alien names have an apostrophe in them?
- The apostrophe is a join rather than a letter. Whenever the generator sets two parts together, a stem against a stem, a prefix against a stem, a stem against an ending, it draws from three joiners and two of them are an apostrophe, so about two joins in three carry one. That is why length changes how common they are: a short name is a single stem and about half the time has no join at all, so roughly a third of short names carry an apostrophe, against nearly all of the long ones, which join three stems and can take a prefix and an ending on top, as in Zho'xeru'fyri'aku'ari. The reading cue under a name does not spell the apostrophe out. It cuts at the same joins and marks one syllable for stress, so Zho'rukka'eth reads zho-RUK-ka-eth.
- What do Short, Medium and Long change on this page?
- They change the invented word, not the type size. Short builds the name from one stem, Medium from two and Long from three, and on top of that a prefix, ai or zho, is attached to about one name in six and one of four endings, ari, eth, ux or ika, to about one in three, at every length. Short also never carries a designation: its only form is the bare name, which is where Cyth, Iqo and Dhomu come from. Medium and Long can add one, so those two lengths give you Tuvo'nruu Broodkin and Qwora'rhezu'mexu Third of Many. Length is part of the draw rather than a display setting, so the same seed word at a different length returns a different list.
- What are the phrases like Envoy of Silence and Third of Many?
- They are designations, eight phrases written for this style: of the Ninth Drift, Envoy of Silence, of the Pale Chorus, Broodkin, of the Far Shoal, Voice of the Hollow Star, Third of Many and of the Quiet Swarm. One follows the name on about a third of Medium draws and about half of Long ones, and never on Short. They are written English rather than assembled syllables, which is the reason the reading cue ignores them: the cue only reads back the parts the generator joined, and guessing at a stress for ordinary words would be inventing a pronunciation. Take a designation as a rank, a brood or a place the character answers for, and edit it freely once it is on your clipboard.
- Are these names from an existing science fiction book, film or game?
- No. Every syllable in the alien set was written for this generator and no stem in it appears in any other style here, and a name is assembled in the page by rule: stems, sometimes a prefix, sometimes an ending, joined with or without an apostrophe. Nothing is copied from a published species list, a cast list or a franchise glossary, and no stem carries a meaning, a translation or an etymology. A short invented word can still land near one you have read somewhere, because there are only so many ways to arrange these sounds, and that is chance rather than copying. We place no restriction on using a name you keep, though the page cannot tell you whether a particular string is already a trademark or an established character, so a name headed for a cover is worth a search first. The accuracy line under the tool is the statement of record.
- Can I get the same alien names back tomorrow?
- Type a word into the Seed word field. With a seed the run comes from a small stream that word starts, so the same seed on the Alien style at the same length returns the same names in the same order, tomorrow and on anyone else's machine, and you can send a collaborator the seed word instead of the list. Asking for more names extends that list rather than reshuffling it, so a run of 40 opens with the names a run of 12 already gave you. Leave the seed empty and every press draws fresh from the browser's cryptographic generator, which cannot be replayed; a seed of only spaces counts as empty. Style, length, count and seed word are remembered in this browser and the Start over button at the top of the page forgets them, but this page still opens on Alien whatever is remembered.
- How do I keep and copy the names I want?
- Every cell in the grid has a star on its right. Press it and that name drops into a kept list under the tool with its style and its reading cue beside it, and pressing the star again removes it. Copy kept puts the whole kept list on the clipboard, one name per line, Copy all does the same for the grid on screen, and clicking a name on its own copies just that name. The Count field takes any whole number from 1 to 100, so a single press can give you a crew rather than a character, and pressing Generate again leaves what you kept alone. The kept list lives in this tab only and goes when you close it, which is the honest limit: copy what you want before you leave.
- How is this different from the Planet and Spaceship styles on the same page?
- Alien is a character style, so it builds a personal name for a being: Nyoka, Chok'iqo of the Ninth Drift. Planet and Spaceship are place styles, and a place style builds the grammar of a thing instead, a catalogued world or a hull with a number on it. The corpora are separate too, so no stem in the alien set turns up in either of them and swapping a name between the two pages would show. The chips above the grid switch style without leaving the page, which is the quick way to name the envoy, the world she comes from and the ship she arrives on in one sitting.
Every syllable set here is written for this tool and assembled by rule, so a name can land near a real one by chance but is never copied from a published character list. The pronunciation cue is built from the same syllables, so it is a reading aid rather than a claim about any language.