Hellhounds guard the gates of the underworld in myths from Greece to Britain, where black dogs with burning eyes haunt lonely roads. This hellhound name generator makes infernal names like Ashmaw, names from Greek myth, silly pet names, and, for three-headed dogs, a name for each head.
Cerberus and his family
The best-known hellhound is Cerberus, the dog who guarded the gates of the Greek underworld so the dead couldn't leave.
- Three heads: later writers settled on three. The poet Hesiod, one of the first to describe him, gave him fifty.
- Heracles dragged him up to the world of the living as the last of his twelve labours.
- His brother Orthos, a two-headed dog, guarded the cattle of the giant Geryon.
The generator's "Three heads" format gives one name for each head, like Biscuit, Toffee and Pickles, which is handy for a three-headed dog costume or three dogs who go everywhere together.
Britain's black dogs
Britain has its own hellhounds: black dogs with burning eyes, seen on lonely roads and in churchyards.
- Black Shuck of East Anglia is said to have burst into the churches at Bungay and Blythburgh in a storm in 1577. Scorch marks on Blythburgh's door are still called his claw marks.
- The Barghest haunts Yorkshire, and Wales has the Gwyllgi, the "dog of darkness".
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story, drew on Dartmoor's black dog legends.
For more of the underworld, try the Demon Name Generator. For a real black dog or cat, the Black Cat Name Generator has names for both.
For more beasts of legend, see all the mythical creature name generators.