Good post-apocalyptic town names are named after whatever is left: a car park, a motorway exit, a shopping trolley or a hope. The Post-Apocalyptic Settlement Name Generator names the towns people build after the end of the world: scrap towns, walled compounds, nomad camps, squats in the ruins of old cities and hopeful villages starting again, with a short description if you want one.
Eight good post-apocalyptic town names
All eight came from the generator, across its five styles:
- Hubcapville: a scrap town named after what it's built from.
- Kettle Cross, where every roof is made from a different road sign: a scrap settlement with a picture in its description.
- Chainlink Keep: a fortified town that's mostly fence.
- Dawes Compound, behind walls made of shipping containers stacked four high: a compound named after whoever's in charge.
- Exit 36: a nomad stop named after the motorway sign, the only landmark left.
- Under the Car Park: a squat in the ruins, named by giving directions.
- Old Planetarium: a ruin people have moved into, still called what it used to be.
- Green Shoots: a village of rebuilders, named after a hope.
How survivors name their settlements
After the end of the world, nobody has time for a grand name. Settlements are named after a landmark, a leader or a joke, and the names stick. Fiction has some famous ones: Bartertown in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Megaton in Fallout 3, a town built around an unexploded bomb.
- Scrap towns are named after the junk: Toaster Ridge, Jerrycan Flats, Bottlecap Cross.
- Fortified towns are stockades, forts and keeps: Keogh's Stockade, Barricade Hill.
- Nomad camps take road names and mile markers: Mile Fifty-Five, Camp Long Road.
- City ruins keep the old building's name: Museum Hill, Department Store Steps, Arrivals.
- Rebuilders choose hopeful names: Daybreak Commons, Brighter Days.
Settling the wasteland
- Name it after what's left. A post-apocalyptic town should tell you what the world used to be.
- Mix the moods. A map with one hopeful village among the stockades and scrap towns has somewhere worth protecting.
- Let names be practical. Survivors name places so others can find them: by road, by sign, by landmark.
For the survivors themselves, try the Post-Apocalyptic Name Generator. For cities before the fall, there's the Sci-Fi City and Cyberpunk City name generators.
For more, see all the sci-fi name generators.