City Name Generator
This page opens the generator on its City set, which builds place names rather than character names, and that is a different shape of word. A city name here is one invented stem with a settlement ending joined to it, ford, mere, gate, hollow, reach, cross, vale, stead, wick, bury, ridge or brook, and five draws in six carry one, where a character style builds a personal word and never uses those endings. Stem count is not the difference: fourteen of the nineteen character styles join a single stem at every length, exactly as this set does, orc and villain reach two stems at Long, and elf, dragon and alien go to two at Medium and three at Long. The 44 stems and the twelve endings are this set's own: no other style's stem, prefix or suffix list holds one of them. A medium draw either leaves the name bare, puts one of the plain words a map uses in front of it, Upper, Lower, Little, Great, New or Old, or sets a terrain word behind it, Moor, Fen, Downs, Bluff, Marsh, Heath, Sands or Weald; a long draw either leaves it bare or takes both at once, so a batch reads like the settlements of one region. Ask for up to 100 at a press, type a seed word if you want the same list back tomorrow, star the ones worth keeping and copy them as a block. The small line under each name reads the invented word, cut at the join the generator made.
Building names
The chips choose the style, and each one is a different syllable set: City builds place and thing 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
- How is a city name different from a character name here?
- The City set is a place set: it builds the name of a settlement rather than a person. One invented stem is drawn and, five times in six, a settlement ending is joined to it, ford, mere, gate, hollow, reach, cross, vale, stead, wick, bury, ridge or brook, which is what makes the word land as somewhere on a map. A character style works the other way round, building the name of a person, and none of them uses these endings. Stem count is not what separates them: fourteen of the nineteen character styles join a single stem at every length, exactly as the City set does, orc and villain reach two stems at Long, and elf, dragon and alien go to two at Medium and three at Long. The 44 stems this set draws from are its own as well, and no other style in the tool shares one, so a city name and an elf name are built from different parts rather than one list under two headings.
- Can I use these names on a map or in a campaign setting?
- Yes, and we place no restriction on the names the tool produces. For a map or a setting, the seed word is the part worth using: type one and this style and length return the same names in the same order, on any machine, so the list you labelled a map from last week comes back unchanged rather than being lost to the next press. What the tool cannot tell you is whether one string is already in use somewhere as a trademark or a published place name. The syllables here are written for this tool and are never copied from a published list, so a collision would be chance rather than borrowing, and a name going on something you publish is worth a search first.
- How do I get a batch of city names at once?
- The Count field takes any whole number from 1 to 100, and every press fills the grid with that many. Copy all puts the visible list on the clipboard as one block, one name per line, which pastes straight into a map key or a spreadsheet. If you want only the good ones, the star beside each name keeps it in the list under the tool for as long as this tab is open, and Copy kept copies those the same way. Ask for more than 100, or for none at all, and the tool says which limit you crossed instead of quietly trimming the number.
- What does the Length control change for a city name?
- Not the invented word: the City set builds its core from one stem at every length. What changes is the grammar around it. Short is always the bare name, Bramhollow. Medium leaves it bare, puts Upper, Lower, Little, Great, New or Old in front of it, or sets a terrain word behind it, as in Sedgebury Moor. Long either leaves it bare or does both at once, as in Old Ilderhollow Bluff. The length is part of the draw, so the same seed word at a different length gives a different list rather than the same one trimmed or padded.
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.