Good kingdom names sound like the land and the people who live there: Pennmark for a medieval border realm, Kadgarth for a dwarven hold, Qasara for a desert throne. This kingdom name generator gives you fantasy kingdoms for D&D campaigns, novels and strategy games: medieval realms, hidden elven courts, deep dwarven holds, desert sultanates, cursed dark kingdoms and orc warlands. Choose a short description and each name comes with a hint of what the kingdom is like.
Eight good kingdom names
All eight came from the generator, across its six styles:
- Pennmark: a plain medieval name: an old word for a hill and an old word for a borderland.
- The Twin Kingdoms of Bramland and Rathmarch: two crowns, one alliance, and a war waiting to happen.
- The Starlit Court of Ysilesse: an elven realm that calls itself a court, not a kingdom.
- The Deep Kingdom of Kadgarth: hard consonants for a dwarven hold under the mountain.
- The Golden Throne of Isharir: a desert kingdom named for its throne.
- The Withered Kingdom of Hagfen, where the rivers run black: a dark kingdom with its curse in the description.
- The Clanlands of Brugmak: an orc kingdom that is really a union of clans.
- Lornwyn, a kingdom of chalk downs and white horses: a description that gives you the landscape at once.
How kingdoms get their names
Real kingdoms were usually named after a people or a place. England was the land of the Angles. Wessex was the kingdom of the West Saxons and Essex the East Saxons, Northumbria lay north of the Humber, and Mercia took its name from an Old English word for the people of the border. Tolkien did the same in Elvish: Gondor means "stone-land".
- Medieval names join English place-name parts, like -moor, -mark and -vale, or take a heraldic badge: Kingdom of the White Boar.
- Elven realms are courts, hidden or moonlit: The Court of Naisse.
- Dwarven kingdoms are holds and crowns of iron: The Holds of Hammerdeep.
- Desert kingdoms take golden and sun thrones: The Sun Throne of Qaset.
- Dark kingdoms are withered, cursed or named for what's gone wrong: The Kingdom of Silence, where no birds sing.
- Orc kingdoms are warlands, clanlands and skull thrones.
Choose With a description for a one-line hook, like Ardmont, whose old king has no heir, which is half a plot already.
Putting a kingdom on the map
- Give neighbours different sounds. An elven court next to an orc warland should sound nothing alike.
- Let the description start a story. A kingdom "which sits between two greater powers" tells your players where the next war will be.
- Name the capital and the castle too, so the court has somewhere to sit.
For a realm on a grander scale, try the Empire Name Generator; for a whole nation with a title, the Fantasy Country Name Generator; and for a modern invented country, the Fictional Country Name Generator. Fill the kingdom with the Castle, Fantasy City, Fantasy Town and Village name generators, and give the adventurers somewhere to go with the Dungeon Name Generator. For the people, see all the D&D name generators.
For more, see all the world-building name generators.