Good castle names are usually just a place name and "Castle", which is why Ravendale Castle sounds older than Castle of Eternal Shadows. Most real castles are simply named after the place they guard. This castle name generator builds names the way real and storybook castles get them, in six styles from medieval keeps to elven palaces, and can add a line of history for your campaign or novel.
Eight good castle names
All eight came from the generator, across its six styles:
- Coldscar Keep: a medieval name built from the landscape, for a hard northern fortress.
- Old Greystow Castle: "where the last siege ended with a tunnel under the gatehouse".
- Dragonspire Keep: heroic fantasy with a dragon in the name.
- Castle Bleakmoor: dark: "Castle" first, then a grim place.
- The Court of Eilennor: an elven palace that sounds like a royal court.
- Hammerhold: dwarven: a hold, not a castle, cut into the rock.
- Ormund Delve: "carved into the mountain over forty generations".
- The Castle on Lily Lake: a fairy-tale castle with its setting in the name.
How castles get their names
- Place name plus Castle is the usual pattern: Dover Castle, Warwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle. The castle takes the name of the place it guards.
- Castle first, as in Castle Rising in Norfolk, sounds older and grander, which is why the dark style uses it.
- Welsh castles are a castell, so Castell Coch is the "red castle".
- Scottish names often start with dùn, Gaelic for a fort, as in Dunnottar and Dunstaffnage.
- Keep was the great central tower of a castle, and hold and delve suit dwarves, who dig rather than build.
The six styles follow these patterns: medieval place names, fantasy spires and watches, dark castles with "Castle" in front, elven palaces and courts, dwarven holds and gates, and fairy-tale palaces by lakes and brooks. Choose With history for a line of the castle's past, like Hold Ragnvald, retaken from the goblins after two hundred years.
Using a castle in your world
- Name the place first. If the castle stands above a town, give them the same name, the way real ones do.
- Let the history line be a hook. A castle "sealed by its own garrison, from the outside" is a whole adventure.
- Match the style to who built it. Elves and dwarves wouldn't call their homes castles at all.
For the realm it rules, try the Kingdom Name Generator or the Empire Name Generator. For the people defending it, there's the Knight Name Generator, and for what lies underneath, the Dungeon Name Generator.
For more, see all the world-building name generators.