Good cave names tell you what's inside before you go in: a dragon, a crystal, the sea, or nothing you'd want to meet. Somewhere under every fantasy map there is a cave worth exploring. This cave name generator gives you fantasy caverns, D&D monster lairs, glittering crystal grottoes, sea caves and dark potholes, with a short description if you want a hook to go with the name.
Eight good cave names
All eight came from the generator, across its five styles:
- The Hermit's Hole: a plain old name with a story behind it.
- Hobgoblin Hole: a fantasy cave with its tenant in the name.
- The Giant Spider's Larder: a monster lair that warns you what you'll be.
- Sootwing's Nest: a dragon's lair named after the dragon.
- The Grotto of Hanging Stars: a crystal cave that sparkles in torchlight.
- Tide Zawn: a sea cave with a real Cornish word for a cleft in the cliffs.
- Conger Gloup: a gloup is a blowhole; this one has eels in it.
- Last Candle Pit: a dark pothole you only go down once.
How caves are named
Real British caves have plain, old names. Hole is the commonest, as in Wookey Hole in Somerset, and in the Yorkshire Dales a deep vertical shaft is a pot or pothole. The generator uses those words, and some local ones from the coast:
- Zawn is Cornish for a deep, narrow sea inlet in the cliffs.
- Gloup, from Orkney and Shetland, is a blowhole where the sea booms up through the roof of a cave.
- Geo is the Northern Isles word for a narrow coastal inlet.
The most famous sea cave in Britain is Fingal's Cave on Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides, with its walls of six-sided basalt columns. A visit there inspired Mendelssohn's Hebrides overture, also called Fingal's Cave.
Choose a style: fantasy caverns, a monster lair, a crystal grotto, a sea cave or a dark pit. With a description adds a hook, like Bogle Pot, where a cold wind blows up from below.
Using caves in a game
- Let locals name it. The villagers' name (Widow's Pit) and the scholar's name (the Celestine Halls) can be different, and the difference is a clue.
- Name the chambers too. A big cave system needs names inside it: the first chamber, the narrow squeeze, the underground lake.
- A lair needs a monster. The lair style names the cave after its owner, so decide who that is before the players arrive.
For a deeper adventure, the Dungeon Name Generator names dungeons and gives you a hook. For the land above, try the Mountain and Forest name generators, and for underground water, the Lake and River name generators.
For more, see all the world-building name generators.