Good sky city names suggest what holds them up: clouds (Raincrown), rock and wind (Driftholm), hot air and brass (Bellowston Skyport) or something holier (The Shining City of Lysithe). This sky city name generator names floating cities and cloud kingdoms of every kind: royal courts built on the clouds, islands of rock adrift on the wind, steampunk airship ports, radiant celestial cities and sci-fi stations high above the world. Add a short description for an instant story hook in your D&D campaign, novel or game.
Eight good sky city names
All eight came from the generator, across its five styles:
- Raincrown: a cloud kingdom that rules the weather below.
- Rainhold, whose bells can be heard on the ground below as distant thunder: a cloud city that explains a mystery on the ground.
- Driftholm: an island adrift: -holm is an old word for an island.
- Kyrow Aloft, lifted into the sky by an old wizard's mistake: a floating island with an accident in its past.
- Port Spratling, where the weather is forecast by a clockwork oracle: a steampunk airship port.
- Corona Stellarum: Latin for "crown of the stars", for a celestial city.
- Hymngate, built by beings of light before the world was young: a holy city named after its gate.
- Quist High Station, that drifts on the winds of a gas giant: a sci-fi city above an alien world.
Cities in the sky
People have imagined cities in the sky for a long time. In Aristophanes' comedy The Birds, from 414 BC, the birds build a city between heaven and earth called Cloudcuckooland, a word English still uses for a fantasy far from reality. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) has Laputa, a flying island steered by a giant magnet.
- Cloud kingdoms use mist, rain and billow: Cirruscourt, Hazehold.
- Floating islands add Adrift or Aloft to a name, or end in rock and spur: Thistleshard, Gustspur.
- Steampunk ports sound like Victorian towns with moorings: Rivetwick, Cranston Aerodrome.
- Celestial cities sound sacred, sometimes in Latin: Hortus Solis, "garden of the sun".
- Orbital stations use the words of altitude and orbit: Habitat Perihelion Ten, Aerostat Updraft.
Using a sky city
- Decide what keeps it up: magic, hot air, a lodestone or engines. The name can hint at it.
- Think about the ground below. A city that casts a shadow the size of a county has neighbours with opinions.
- Give it a way in: a stair of clouds, an airship mooring or a lift that takes three days.
For airships and their crews, try the Steampunk Name Generator. For the city's opposite, there's the Underwater City Name Generator, and for the gods a celestial city serves, the God Name Generator.
For more, see all the world-building name generators.