Good temple names tell you who is worshipped there and how: a sunlit Sanctuary of Gentle Rain, a druid's Rowanmere Henge, a cult's Veilfane. This temple name generator makes temple names for D&D and fantasy writing in six styles, from sunlit sanctuaries and druid circles to cult fanes and mountain monasteries, and can tell you which invented god is worshipped there.
Eight good temple names
All eight came from the generator, across its six styles:
- The Abbey of the Hundred Lamps: a holy house you can picture lit up at night.
- Haloreach, sacred to a sun god who runs the sky as a golden stag: a holy name with a god you can picture.
- Veilfane, dedicated to a goddess of night, secrets and poison: a cult temple in one short, hissing word.
- Rowanmere Henge: a druid circle by a lake of rowan trees.
- The Sanctum of the Glacier Mother: an elemental temple to the ice itself.
- The Fane of the First Kings: an ancient temple, older than anyone's records.
- The Temple of the Jade Tortoise: an eastern temple named for a sacred animal.
- The Hall of the Iron Fist, where warrior monks honour a god of discipline and courage: a monastery with a job to do.
How temples get their names
Temples have usually been named after the god inside them. The Parthenon in Athens takes its name from Athena Parthenos, "Athena the maiden", and the Romans called a god's temple an aedes, a house. Several old English words for holy places still turn up on maps:
- Fane, from the Latin fanum, a sacred place. It's the word the generator uses for dark and ancient temples.
- Minster, from the Latin monasterium by way of Old English: York Minster, Westminster.
- -church and -kirk, from English and Norse: Ormskirk, Falkirk.
- Henge, which archaeologists borrowed from Stonehenge itself.
The styles follow the kind of faith: holy abbeys and sanctuaries, dark fanes and undercrofts, druidic groves and stone rings, elemental spires and fonts, ancient ziggurats and pyramids, and eastern pavilions and pagodas. Choose With its god to add who is worshipped, like Hartstone, sacred to a tree goddess whose roots hold up the land.
Using a temple in your world
- Let the god shape the building. A god of the sea gets a harbour shrine; a god of secrets gets an undercroft.
- Give the temple a rule. No iron inside, no speaking after dusk: one custom makes it memorable.
- Ruined temples are adventures. An ancient fane that nobody remembers is a ready-made dungeon.
Name the god with the God Name Generator and the priest with the Cleric Name Generator. For a temple that has fallen, try the Ruins Name Generator, and for the halls beneath it, the Dungeon Name Generator.
For more, see all the world-building name generators.