County Name Generator

Real county names are almost never invented from scratch, which is why made-up ones often ring false. In the United States the great majority are named after a person (a founder, a general, a politician), a natural feature (Wolf Creek, Red Clay, Sawtooth) or an older Native American or Spanish place name, and the word County always follows. English counties are older and shorter, built from a town plus -shire (Oakhamshire) or from Anglo-Saxon tribal and landscape words (Norbury, Saltmarsh, Upwold). Ireland puts the word first (County Kilbrannan), and Scotland's historic counties lean on glen, loch, strath and kirk.

In a fantasy or historical setting a county is literally the land held by a count, so the form County of Vaelmont signals feudal politics rather than a modern administrative map. A good fictional county name also hints at the terrain and the people who settled it: a frontier county might be Hardscrabble or Broken Arrow, an old coastal one Pelican Bay, a prosperous farming one Wheatfield or Pecan Grove.

This county name generator mixes all of those styles. Use the surname counties for a realistic American state map, the shires for an English-flavoured setting, and the County of names for a kingdom divided among noble houses.