Bird of Prey Name Generator

Falconers have named hawks for a thousand years, and the habit shapes what a bird of prey name should sound like. Working names are short and hard-edged so they carry across a field: Talon, Gale, Stoop, Kes, Gos. T.H. White simply called his goshawk Gos; Helen Macdonald's was Mabel, chosen because an old superstition says a gentle name makes a fierce bird. Many falconers also borrow the craft's own vocabulary, so a male falcon becomes Tiercel, a wild-caught adult Haggard, a first-year bird Passager, and a hawk in hunting condition Yarak.

The second great source is myth. Almost every culture put a raptor in the sky: Horus and Montu in Egypt, Garuda and Jatayu in India, the Simurgh and Huma of Persia, Anzu in Mesopotamia, the Norse Hraesvelgr and Vedrfolnir, the Hungarian Turul, the Maori Pouakai and the Thunderbird of the Plains. Names meaning eagle, hawk or falcon also make strong, unusual choices: Shaheen, Berkut, Sokol, Kartal, Cuauhtli, Hayabusa, Eryr, Nesher.

For fantasy and game companions, compounds built from flight and weather words read best when kept to one idea each, such as Windrender, Galecutter or Dawnstrike, and real species words like Peregrine, Harrier, Osprey, Lammergeier and Caracara sound exotic enough to serve as names on their own.