Town name generator
A town that sounds as if it has been on the map for centuries, for a cosy mystery, a small-town romance or the place a character left.
Free, with no sign-up. Every name is yours to use in anything you write, with no credit owed.
Names
Press a name to copy it.
Choosing a name
- Check it is not real. Made-up English and American names often turn out to exist, and ours can too. Search a name before you publish or burn a fictional town down in it, and choose another if a real one is close by.
- The ending tells the history. English -by and -thorpe are Norse and belong in the north and east; -combe belongs in the south-west; American -ville is a nineteenth-century founder’s name. Match the ending to the region.
- Name the streets too. A town feels real when the characters say Mill Lane or the Old Road without explaining them. Note the few names your scenes return to.
How these names are made
Every name is from two lists we wrote out in full. English names are made the way real ones are, from a first element such as Sorrel, Wren or Teasel and an ending such as -ford, -ham, -bury or -wick; American names pair a plant, bird, stone, everyday word or family name with a feature such as Bend, Ferry or Ridge, or add -ville, -ton or -burg to a founder’s name. We left out the real towns we know of, but there are tens of thousands, so any of these may still match a real place somewhere: check before you publish.
Nothing you generate is sent anywhere or saved: the names are picked in your browser.
In Author Sweets
Every character and place in an Author Sweets book has its own page in Planning, with the facts you keep about them and, under Also known as, the nicknames and titles the text uses, so Appears in finds every scene they are in whichever name is on the page.
Stuck on the scene rather than the name? Try one of the writing prompts, or browse the other name generators.