Kingdom Name Generator
Names for kingdoms, empires and realms in eight cultures, ten at a time. Each comes with its two parts and its meaning, so you know what your realm's name says before it goes on the map.
- No sign-up
- Runs in your browser
- No AI, no waiting
Fords, farms and fortified hills: the names of English shires and market towns.
- Kingdom of Sutwold
Meaning: The southern high forest.
Made from: Sut south and -wold high forest
- Kingdom of Kingland
Meaning: The king's land.
Made from: King king and -land land
- Wulfmere
Meaning: The lake of the wolves.
Made from: Wulf wolves and -mere lake
- Kingdom of Westmere
Meaning: The western lake.
Made from: West west and -mere lake
- Kingdom of Aldland
Meaning: The old land.
Made from: Ald old and -land land
- Salshire
Meaning: The county among the willows.
Made from: Sal willows and -shire county
- Wulfshire
Meaning: The county of the wolves.
Made from: Wulf wolves and -shire county
- Kingdom of Millmere
Meaning: The lake by the mill.
Made from: Mill mill and -mere lake
- Longmere
Meaning: The long lake.
Made from: Long long and -mere lake
- Acmere
Meaning: The lake by the oak trees.
Made from: Ac oak trees and -mere lake
Built from real Old English place-name elements: -ford is a river crossing, -wick a dairy farm, -bury a fortified place. The combinations are new; what each part means is real.
How it works
- Choose a culture for the people who rule the land, from English and Norse to Dwarven and Desert.
- Pick kingdom, empire or realm. The written form changes with it: “Kingdom of Caldmarch”, “Stanwold Empire”, “Realm of Syltalen”.
- Press New names, or R, for another ten; each card spells out its parts and what they mean together.
- Star a few to compare, copy one or the batch with meanings (C), or save the list as an image.
Every name means something
Each name is two parts: what the place is like, and what it is. You see both, and the meaning they make together, so a name on your map can tell a reader something before they get there.
Where the names of real realms come from
Most real countries are named after one of a handful of things: a people, a ruler, a landscape or a direction. England is the land of the Angles, France the land of the Franks, Scotland the land of the Scots. Lorraine keeps the name of Lothair, a Frankish king, and the Ottoman Empire was named after Osman, its founder. The Netherlands are simply the low lands, and Norway is usually explained as the way north, the sea road along its coast.
Directions and borders turn up more than you might expect. Austria's German name, Österreich, means the eastern realm, and Sverige, Sweden's own name, comes from an old phrase for the realm of the Swedes. Denmark is usually read as the march, or border country, of the Danes. Nihon, Japan's own name, means the origin of the sun. The generator follows this habit: every kingdom it makes is a land head such as -mark, -march, -rike or -kuni with a word in front saying what that land is like.
Kingdom, empire or realm
A kingdom is usually one people's land under a crown, and its name is the land itself: Caldmarch, or the Kingdom of Caldmarch in a formal document. An empire has taken in other kingdoms, so it carries the name of its heartland while the conquered lands keep theirs inside it. A realm is the loosest word, good for a domain held by something stranger than a king. The generator writes each the way people really do: “Kingdom of”, “Empire” after the name or “Empire of” before it, and “Realm of”.
The form tells the reader something before the name does. “The Stanwold Empire” sounds like a power that grew out of one province; “the Empire of Stanwold” sounds older and grander, the way a herald might announce it. In speech people drop the title and say Stanwold, just as nobody buying bread in Edinburgh calls Scotland a kingdom. Keep the long form for treaties, maps and chapter openings, and the short one for everything else.
Neighbours and rivals
Kingdoms with a shared past should share sounds. If two realms split from one old crown, make both in the same culture and let them keep a common part, a Stanwold and a Stanmere, so the family likeness is plain. Mercia, the old English kingdom, took its name from a word for the people of the border, and the borderland between England and Wales is still called the Marches. A frontier realm earns its -march or -mark.
Rivals and strangers should sound foreign. Put the Dwarven culture under the mountains and the Desert culture beyond the sands, and their names will jar against the English or French lowlands in a way that tells readers these are different peoples. Keep each culture to its own stretch of the map. The Elven, Dwarven and Desert languages were invented for these tools, so their meanings are made up; the English, Norse, French, German and Japanese parts are real words and place-name elements, put together in new ways.
Keeping it sayable at the table
A realm's name gets said more than almost any other word in a campaign, so it has to survive being called across a table. Two or three syllables is plenty. Avoid names that begin like a player character's, and try the phrases people will actually use: “the armies of Harmark”, “a Harmark spy”, “Harmarkish steel”. If the adjective is awkward, your players will invent one for you, and it may not be the one you wanted. Read a batch aloud before you star anything, and keep the meaning in your notes for the day someone asks.
Names in eight cultures
English
Fords, farms and fortified hills: the names of English shires and market towns.
- Kingdom of Westmarch
- The western borderland.
- Kingdom of Hartmarch
- The borderland of the stags.
- Norwold
- The northern high forest.
Built from real Old English place-name elements: -ford is a river crossing, -wick a dairy farm, -bury a fortified place. The combinations are new; what each part means is real.
Norse
Bays, islets and farmsteads: the north, from the fjords to the Danelaw.
- Kingdom of Jarnlund
- The grove of iron.
- Jarndal
- The valley of iron.
- Kingdom of Ismark
- The icy borderland.
Real Old Norse elements, as found across Scandinavia and the north of England: -by is a farmstead, -thorpe an outlying farm, -holm an islet. Spellings are simplified and the combinations are new.
French-inspired
Fair hills, bright valleys and castles on the rock.
- Kingdom of Luneterre
- The land of the moon.
- Kingdom of Verterre
- The green land.
- Loupval
- The valley of the wolves.
Real French words and old place-name elements: -ville is a town, -mont a hill, Beau- fair, Roche- rock. The names are new combinations, written as one word where French would sometimes add a hyphen.
German-inspired
Castles, brooks and black forests: villages in the valleys, towns on the rivers.
- Rotheide
- The red heath.
- Kingdom of Kirchtal
- The valley by the church.
- Kingdom of Rosenwald
- The forest of the roses.
Real German place-name elements: -dorf is a village, -burg a castle, -bach a brook, Schwarz- black. New combinations of real parts.
Elven
Gardens, groves and havens by still water, in a soft, flowing language.
- Kingdom of Lumendris
- The realm of melody.
- Ilvael
- The vale by still water.
- Aertalen
- The old wood in the high air.
An invented language made for these tools, the same one the Character Name Generator's elf names use: the meanings are made up, not real-world etymology.
Dwarven
Halls, forges and gates under the mountain, in short, hard syllables.
- Rumgrund
- The caverns of echoes.
- Balamar
- The realm of the hammer.
- Kingdom of Thurvorn
- The tunnels of thunder.
An invented language made for these tools: hard sounds and made-up meanings, not real-world etymology.
Desert
Oases, markets and palaces on the edge of the sands.
- Kingdom of Iradras
- The plateau under the noon sun.
- Eshkhar
- The wastes under the sun.
- Serdras
- The plateau of silk.
An invented language made for these tools, not taken from any real one: open vowels, and meanings that are made up.
Japanese-inspired
Mountains, rivers, capes and pine villages, built the way real Japanese place names are.
- Kitatani
- The northern valley.
- Kingdom of Ishijima
- The island of stone.
- Kingdom of Mizutani
- The valley by the water.
Real Japanese words, joined the way real place names join them: -yama is a mountain, -mura a village, -gawa a river. Written in plain romaji, without long-vowel marks.
Questions
- Does the kingdom name generator cost anything?
- No. It's free, there are no limits on how many batches you make, and any name you pick is yours for a novel, a campaign or a game.
- Is there AI behind it?
- No. The names come from word lists and a few joining rules, run in your browser, with no account to make and nothing sent to a server.
- Do the names really mean what the card says?
- For the English, Norse, French-inspired, German-inspired and Japanese-inspired cultures, yes: each part is a real word or place-name element with that meaning, though the pairings are new. The Elven, Dwarven and Desert languages are made up for these tools, so their meanings are invented.
- Can I use a kingdom name in my D&D world or my book?
- Yes, however you like. A short name can occasionally match a real place or something in another story, so do a quick search before it goes on a cover.
- Why did I get the same names as a friend?
- The first batch on the page is fixed, so it looks the same for everybody. Press New names and each batch after that comes from its own random seed.
- Where are my favourite realms kept?
- In your browser's storage on this device. They stay until you remove them or clear the site's data, and they never leave your computer or phone.
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