A good wizard tower name tells you about the wizard before you knock: a jewel and a spire for a scholar (The Sapphire Needle of Mallowfell), bones and bells for a necromancer, a star tower for an astronomer. Every self-respecting mage needs a tower. This wizard tower name generator names arcane spires, grim necromancer towers, elemental towers, astronomers' observatories, ruins and eccentric follies, with a short description if you want one.
Eight good wizard tower names
All eight came from the generator, across its six styles:
- The Sapphire Needle of Mallowfell: a jewel, a tall thin tower and a place: the classic arcane pattern.
- Glimford Spire, whose door opens only to someone who speaks its true name: a scholar's tower with a puzzle at the front door.
- The Spire of the Tolling Bell, whose master has not been seen alive for three centuries: a necromancer's tower that sounds like a warning.
- Basaltcrag, carved into the side of a cliff, one room per century: an earth wizard's home that grew slowly.
- Hepzibah's Meteor Tower, whose orrery holds a tiny, burning sun: an observatory named after the astronomer who built it.
- The Ruined Tower of Broken Wands: a ruin that tells you how it ended.
- Old Snorkle's Tower and Tea Room: a funny name for a wizard who has had to diversify.
- The Biscuit Tower, whose wizard has been "just popping out" since last spring: a folly with a mystery in it.
How towers get their names
Towers have always been named for who built them or what they were for. Real ones show the pattern: Tycho Brahe's observatory on the island of Hven, built in the 1570s, was called Uraniborg, after Urania, the muse of astronomy. The follies that 18th-century landowners put up on their estates were named after the owner or the view. In fiction the wizard's tower became a type of its own, and Saruman's Orthanc at Isengard is the one most readers picture.
- Arcane towers are needles, spires and pinnacles, often with a jewel or a colour: The Indigo Spire.
- Necromancer towers take bones, graves and the names of the dead: The Tower of Ivo the Gravewalker, Dirgemere.
- Elemental towers name their element: The Tower of Falling Hail, Blazetor.
- Observatories watch the sky: Clearfell Observatory, The Comet Watch.
- Ruined towers say what's left: The Roofless Tower of Wickby.
- Funny towers belong to wizards whose neighbours have complained: Old Whiffle's Extremely Tall Tower.
Choose With a description for a line about the tower itself, which is often the best hook for a visit.
Using a tower in your story
- Name it after its owner if the wizard is still alive, and after its fate if they aren't.
- Let the description set the quest: a door that opens to a true name means someone has to find that name.
- Give each floor a purpose, from the library to the room nobody goes into.
For the wizard inside, try the Wizard Name Generator, and for where they trained, the Magic School Name Generator. For a tower that's become a prison, there's the Prison Name Generator, and for one that's fallen, the Ruins Name Generator.
For more, see all the world-building name generators.