Wood elves are the elves who stayed in the forests: quick, quiet and wary of strangers. Their names are shorter and earthier than a high elf's, the kind you could call across a clearing. This wood elf name generator pairs a first name with a family name built from Sindarin, the language of Tolkien's woodland elves, and can tell you what it means: Erynloth, "Woodflower".
Wood elves in Tolkien and D&D
- In Tolkien, the Silvan elves of Mirkwood and Lothlórien never made the journey west. Their king was Thranduil, and his son's name, Legolas, simply means "green leaf" in their speech.
- In D&D, wood elves are the swift, stealthy subrace of the deep forests: rangers, druids and scouts, more at home under trees than in towns.
- Elsewhere, they're the Bosmer of the Elder Scrolls and the Asrai of Warhammer: always the forest's own people.
Family names from the forest
Each family name joins two real Sindarin words, so the meaning is genuine:
- calen green, eryn wood, taur forest, galadh tree, nen water, gwaew wind, ross rain, thoron eagle, duin river.
- loth flower, lass leaf, and the same nouns again for the second half.
So Calenlass is Greenleaf, the same idea as Legolas, and Taurthoron Foresteagle. In real Sindarin, sounds change when words are joined; these keep each word whole so the meaning is easy to see.
Playing a wood elf
- A name to call across a clearing. Wood elf first names here are short, so they work shouted on a hunt.
- Let the family name be a place. A family called Duinnen (Riverwater) probably lives by one, and a Thorongaladh (Eagletree) family may keep the eyrie.
- Common names too. Many wood elves use a plain name with outsiders, like Fern or Ash, and keep the elvish one for kin.