Fantasy Town Name Generator With Story Hooks

Choose a region and a settlement size and get 12 fantasy town names, each with a hook: what the place is known for and what is going wrong there right now. Keep the best ones and export them for your map, your campaign or your game data.

Step 1 of 2: Region
Where in your world is the settlement?

How to use it

  1. Choose a region, such as Green farmland, Northern coast or Swamp, and press Next.
  2. Choose Village, Town or City, and press Generate town names.
  3. Star the places you want to keep, then press Generate more.
  4. Press Download list or Download as JSON to save the names and hooks.
  5. Press Copy Ziva prompt to have Ziva build a clickable world map with them.

Borrow from how real places got their names

Real place names are usually plain descriptions that wore down over centuries. In England, many names end in Old Norse bý, meaning a farmstead or village (Linby is the village by the lime trees), Old Norse þorp, a secondary settlement or outlying farmstead (the -thorpe in many village names), or Old English tūn, an enclosure, farmstead, village or estate (the common -ton).

The Green farmland region uses endings like these, and the size you pick changes them: villages get endings like -by, -stead and -thorpe, towns get -ton, -ford and -wick, and cities get -chester, -minster and -borough. The other regions follow the same idea with their own sounds, so a desert city and a northern fishing village never sound alike.

Give every town a hook

A name is easy to forget; a problem is not. Each result pairs what the town is known for with something that is going wrong, for example a mountain town known for hot springs that never freeze where miners broke into a cavern that hums. That second sentence is a quest waiting to be written.

When you place towns on a map, mix sizes. One city, three towns and a scatter of villages per region feels lived in, and the villages are where small, early quests fit best.

Frequently asked questions

How do I name a fantasy town?
Combine a word that describes the land or a founder with an ending that means settlement, the way real places do: Ashford, Highhold, Coral Cove. Then give the place one thing it is known for so players remember it.
What is the difference between the Village, Town and City options?
Size changes the name endings and the kind of trouble in the hook. Villages have small, local problems, towns have guild feuds and missing mayors, and cities have plots and plagues.
Can I use these names in my game or tabletop campaign?
Yes. The names and hooks are generated in your browser from word lists written for this tool, and you can use them however you like.
What is in the JSON download?
An array with one object per place, with name, hook, region and size fields, ready to load as game data.

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