Crater Name Generator

Impact scars and crater lakes for any world

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Crater names for fantasy maps, moons and sci-fi planets: person-named craters like Verhoeven Crater and Lindqvist-Tanaka Basin, scars in the land like Skyscar Hollow and The Cinder Bowl, and field names like Dry Creek Crater and Coldtrap Crater.

About crater names

Real craters get their names in a few distinct ways, and each gives a different feel. On the Moon, craters are named for scientists, scholars and explorers who have died, which is why the map reads Tycho, Copernicus and Clavius. A small crater beside a named one takes that name plus a letter, a pattern this list borrows in entries such as Verhoeven B. On Mars the large craters also honor people, while the small ones are named after small towns on Earth.

On Earth the usual pattern is the nearest creek, town or local word plus Crater, Structure or Astrobleme, as in Wolfe Creek Crater and Kaali Crater. The list follows it with names like Dry Creek Crater and Loon Lake Crater. Fantasy maps go the other way and describe the wound itself: Skyscar Hollow, The Cinder Bowl, Heaven's Thumbprint.

About a quarter of the names are person-style, a good third suit an airless moon or a Mars-like world, and the rest cover fantasy scars, volcanic craters, maars and crater lakes. A handful of famous real craters are included as anchors. The person-style entries show the convention with ordinary surnames.

How to choose crater names

  • Decide who named it. Surveyors and astronomers use surnames and letters, settlers use the nearest creek or town, and people who watched it fall use fear and awe.
  • Match the word to the size. Basin suits something hundreds of kilometers wide, Crater and Ring a clear rim, and Bowl, Pit, Hollow or Sink a smaller dent you can walk across.
  • For a moon or a dry planet, pick names that mention shadow, dust, cold or regolith, such as Coldtrap Crater or Regolith Ring, and save lakes and tarns for worlds with water.
  • Give a satellite crater its parent. If Verhoeven Crater is on your map, Verhoeven B belongs right beside it.
  • A crater lake can take the crater's name or its own. Lake Roundel and The Inkwell say what the water looks like from the rim.

Frequently asked questions

How do real craters get their names?

Craters on the Moon are named for scientists, scholars and explorers who are no longer living, and nearby smaller craters take the same name with a letter. On Mars, large craters are named for people and small ones for small towns. On Earth most impact craters are simply named for the nearest town, creek or landmark.

What is a good name for a crater on a fantasy map?

Name it for how it was made or what it looks like now. Starfall Basin, The Godsfist and Dragonfall Crater tell a story about the impact, while Giant's Cup and The Glass Bowl describe the shape. Locals in your world would also shorten it, so a plain name like Old Scorch can sit beside the grand one.

Are these real crater names?

A small number are famous real craters, included as anchors: Tycho Crater, Copernicus Crater, Chicxulub Crater, Barringer Crater and Vredefort Dome among them. The rest follow real naming patterns but are written for fiction, games and maps. None of them is offered as a designation for a real feature.

What is the difference between a crater, a caldera and a maar?

An impact crater is dug by something striking the surface. A caldera forms when the ground collapses over an emptied magma chamber, and a maar is a broad, shallow crater blown out when magma meets groundwater, often filled by a lake. The list has names for all three, such as Tephra Ring, Blue Maar and Broken Top Caldera.

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All 500 crater names

This is the complete list the generator above draws its random batches from, sorted A to Z and grouped by first letter.

Plain text, one name per line.

A: 21 names

  • Abernathy Crater
  • Acacia Well Structure
  • Achterberg Crater
  • Acid Lake
  • Adeyemi Crater
  • Airlock Crater
  • Aldecott C
  • Aldecott Crater
  • Altiplano Crater
  • Ancient Delta Crater
  • Angel's Landing Bowl
  • Antelope Sink
  • Antenna Bowl
  • Argent Patera
  • Aristarchus Crater
  • Arroyo Seco Crater
  • Ash Cone Crater
  • Ashbreath Hollow
  • Ashmark
  • Ashring
  • Aurora Patera

B: 27 names

  • Bald Knob Structure
  • Baobab Ring
  • Baptiste Crater
  • Barringer Crater
  • Basalt Sea Crater
  • Beacon Crater
  • Bellfall Crater
  • Birch Fen Crater
  • Bitter Springs Crater
  • Black Rock Crater
  • Blackglass Deep
  • Blue Maar
  • Blue Sunset Crater
  • Blueberry Crater
  • Boiling Mud Crater
  • Boreas Patera
  • Bottomless Blue
  • Boxthorn Crater
  • Breached Rim Harbor
  • Bright Apron Crater
  • Brightray Crater
  • Brimstone Crater
  • Broken Top Caldera
  • Brumby Creek Crater
  • Buried Rim
  • Burnt Offering Bowl
  • Butterfly Crater

C: 39 names

  • Calloway Crater
  • Caloris Basin
  • Campo del Hierro
  • Captain Orlov's Deep
  • Caribou Lake Impact Structure
  • Carmody Crater
  • Castellanos Crater
  • Castellanos F
  • Chain of Seven
  • Chalk Down Crater
  • Chicxulub Crater
  • Cinder Ring
  • Clavius Crater
  • Cloud Catcher Lake
  • Cold Sink
  • Coldtrap Crater
  • Colony Crater
  • Comet's Rest
  • Cometfall Ring
  • Conca del Vento
  • Cone-in-the-Bowl
  • Copernicus Crater
  • Corvus Catena
  • Cottonwood Draw Crater
  • Coyote Wash Crater
  • Crash Site Alpha
  • Cráter de la Luna
  • Cráter del Halcón
  • Cráter del Silencio
  • Cráter Escondido
  • Cratera da Estrela
  • Cratera do Silêncio
  • Cratère de la Pierre Tombée
  • Cratere del Lupo
  • Cratere della Stella Caduta
  • Cratère des Étoiles
  • Cratère du Corbeau
  • Crescent Island Crater
  • Crown of Cinders

D: 20 names

  • Deadhorse Lake Crater
  • Deep Fork Crater
  • Delacroix Basin
  • Depot Crater
  • Dingo Flat Crater
  • Doomfall Crater
  • Double Ring Basin
  • Dr. Amara's Crater
  • Dragomir Crater
  • Dragonfall Crater
  • Drill Site Crater
  • Drowned Crater Bay
  • Drowned Floor Crater
  • Dry Creek Crater
  • Dry Ice Bowl
  • Dry Lakebed Crater
  • Dune Field Crater
  • Dunmore Crater
  • Dust Devil Crater
  • Dustfall Basin

E: 14 names

  • Earthrise Crater
  • Echo Bowl
  • El Cuenco
  • Eldgígur
  • Emberpit
  • Emerald Crater Lake
  • Emu Soak Ring
  • Engström Crater
  • Engström-Rahimi Basin
  • Eriksen Crater
  • Eriksen H
  • Esterházy Crater
  • Eternal Shadow Crater
  • Eye of the World

F: 22 names

  • Fairweather Crater
  • Fallen Moon Hollow
  • Far Horizon Crater
  • Farfall Deep
  • Farmer Tolley's Hollow
  • Farouk Basin
  • Farside Deep
  • Fern Wall Crater
  • Firefall Hollow
  • First Footprint Crater
  • Firstfall
  • Flamingo Crater Lake
  • Flint Ridge Astrobleme
  • Fonseca Crater
  • Fonseca R
  • Fonseca-Uchida Basin
  • Fossil River Crater
  • Founders' Crater
  • Fourteen Day Night Crater
  • Frostline Crater
  • Frozen Floor Crater
  • Fumarole Bowl

G: 17 names

  • Galanis Crater
  • Gale Crater
  • Geyser Basin Crater
  • Ghost Crater
  • Giant's Cup
  • Gibber Plain Crater
  • Glassbead Crater
  • Glasswalk Crater
  • Goswami Crater
  • Granite Narrows Crater
  • Gravel Crown
  • Green Lake of the Rim
  • Greenhouse Crater
  • Greyfall Crater
  • Grünwald Crater
  • Guanaco Pampa Crater
  • Gully Wall Crater

H: 23 names

  • Habitat Crater
  • Hard Shadow Crater
  • Harlan County Structure
  • Hartigan's Crater
  • Haverford Crater
  • Hearthstone Hollow
  • Heaven's Thumbprint
  • Heavenspite
  • Helios Catena
  • Helium Flats Crater
  • Hellas Basin
  • Hematite Ring
  • Heron Maar
  • Hexenkessel
  • Himmelsnarbe
  • Hollis Basin
  • Hollis-Petrakis Basin
  • Hollow Maar
  • Homeward Crater
  • Horseshoe Cove Crater
  • Hot Spring Hollow
  • Hoya del Lucero
  • Hoyo del Trueno

I: 7 names

  • Ibarra Crater
  • Ice Well Crater
  • Ignis Patera
  • Il Calderone
  • Ilves Crater
  • Ironstone Gap Structure
  • Iwasaki Crater

J: 6 names

  • Jade Cauldron Lake
  • Jankowski Crater
  • Jaramillo Crater
  • Jorgensen Crater
  • Jungle Ring
  • Juniper Flat Crater

K: 11 names

  • Kaali Crater
  • Kalahari Pan Crater
  • Kangaroo Well Crater
  • Karst Hill Astrobleme
  • Kettle Creek Structure
  • Kettle Tarn
  • Kimathi Crater
  • Kingsbane Crater
  • Kivijärvi Crater
  • Kowalczyk Basin
  • Krater Gwiazdy

L: 33 names

  • La Olla
  • Lac des Deux Anneaux
  • Lac du Cratère
  • Lachance Crater
  • Laguna del Cráter
  • Lake of the Sleeping Fire
  • Lake Roundel
  • Lake Thimble
  • Lake Vermilion Deep
  • Lake Without a River
  • Lake-in-the-Sky Caldera
  • Lander's Luck
  • Landfall Crater
  • Lantern Pit
  • Last Signal Crater
  • Lastlight Crater
  • Lava Lake Crater
  • Le Chaudron
  • Le Creux du Géant
  • Limestone Gap Crater
  • Lindholm Basin
  • Lindqvist Crater
  • Lindqvist D
  • Lindqvist-Tanaka Basin
  • Little Wexcombe Crater
  • Lomax Crater
  • Lone Peak Crater
  • Long Night Crater
  • Longray Crater
  • Loon Lake Crater
  • Lost Mule Crater
  • Lost Ocean Basin
  • Low Gravity Bowl

M: 20 names

  • Maddox's Folly
  • Manicouagan Crater
  • Marchetti Crater
  • Meridian Catena
  • Meteor King's Throne
  • Meteor Maiden's Tear
  • Middleton Sink
  • Mining Claim Twelve
  • Mirror Tarn
  • Monsoon Creek Crater
  • Moondrop Crater
  • Moondust Hollow
  • Moonwound
  • Morvan Crater
  • Morvan K
  • Morvan-Ibarra Basin
  • Mulga Downs Impact Structure
  • Muskeg Ring
  • Mustajärvi Crater
  • Mwangi Crater

N: 8 names

  • Nakagawa Crater
  • Navigator Reyes Crater
  • Nazari Crater
  • Nearside Bowl
  • Nightfall Crater
  • Novák Crater
  • Novák G
  • Nox Catena

O: 20 names

  • Oasis of the Ring
  • Oathbreaker's Pit
  • Obsidian Cauldron
  • Ochre Ring
  • Oculus Caeli
  • Ogre's Stewpot
  • Okonkwo A
  • Okonkwo Crater
  • Okonkwo-Varga Basin
  • Old Brannock's Hole
  • Old Chimney Crater
  • Old Lander Crater
  • Old Salt Crater Lake
  • Old Scorch
  • Olla de Fuego
  • Opal Ridge Crater
  • Orbit's Shadow
  • Ostrander Crater
  • Outpost Nine Crater
  • Oyelaran Crater

P: 16 names

  • Peak of Light Crater
  • Peat Moss Ring
  • Pedestal Crater
  • Pemberton Crater
  • Peppered Plain
  • Perchlorate Pit
  • Petrakis Crater
  • Pine Barrens Crater
  • Pink Sky Crater
  • Poculum Gigantis
  • Polar Cap Crater
  • Portage Bay Crater
  • Prentiss Crater
  • Probe's End
  • Prospector Dunn's Pit
  • Pumice Crater

Q: 4 names

  • Quarry Hill Impact Site
  • Quennell Crater
  • Quiet Sea Crater
  • Quigley Basin

R: 20 names

  • Rahimi Crater
  • Rampart Crater
  • Rasmussen Crater
  • Rasmussen M
  • Rattlesnake Butte Crater
  • Ravenglass Crater
  • Reactor Bowl
  • Red Dune Astrobleme
  • Red Dust Crater
  • Red Mesa Crater
  • Reef Ring Impact Structure
  • Regolith Ring
  • Riesenkessel
  • Rimwater
  • Ringsjön Structure
  • Roof-Fall Pit
  • Rosengren Crater
  • Rover's Rest
  • Ruin Ring
  • Rustbowl

S: 57 names

  • Sagebrush Sink
  • Saint's Heel
  • Salt Pan Crater
  • Saltbush Crater
  • Saltzman Crater
  • Sand Sea Crater
  • Sandoval Crater
  • Sandstorm Crater
  • Sapphire Sink
  • Scoria Pit
  • Second Dawn Crater
  • Silent Basin
  • Sinkhole Bay Crater
  • Sister Agnes Crater
  • Skipping Stone Row
  • Skyfall Deep
  • Skyfire Scar
  • Skyhammer Crater
  • Skyscar Hollow
  • Skystone Rest
  • Sleeping Vent Crater
  • Slingshot Crater
  • Snowmelt Crater Lake
  • Soda Crater
  • Sol Zero Crater
  • Solar Wind Crater
  • South Pole Deep
  • Spearfall Crater
  • Spinifex Ring
  • Splinterfall
  • St. Aldhelm's Dimple
  • Stairwall Crater
  • Starbone Pit
  • Starfall Basin
  • Stargrave Hollow
  • Starshard Pit
  • Station Rim
  • Steam Crown Caldera
  • Sternenkrater
  • Sterrenkrater
  • Stillglass Lake
  • Stillwater Impact Structure
  • Stjernekrateret
  • Stjörnugígur
  • Stonefall Hollow
  • Stony Desert Crater
  • Stormbreak Bowl
  • Sudbury Basin
  • Sulfur Pot
  • Summit Pit
  • Sunken Cone Lagoon
  • Sunstrike Crater
  • Supply Drop Crater
  • Surveyor Finch's Crater
  • Svartigígur
  • Svartvik Crater
  • Syväjärvi Impact Structure

T: 78 names

  • Tähtikraatteri
  • Tamarack Bay Structure
  • Tanaka Basin
  • Tanglewood Bay Structure
  • Tearfall Tarn
  • Telescope Crater
  • Tephra Ring
  • Terminator Crater
  • Teufelskessel
  • Thackeray Basin
  • The Anvil of Heaven
  • The Ashen Cup
  • The Bleeding Bowl
  • The Bright Scar
  • The Broken Plate
  • The Burnt Ring
  • The Chimney Mouth
  • The Cinder Bowl
  • The Cold Hearth
  • The Dead Star's Bed
  • The Devil's Thumb Mark
  • The Dragon's Saucer
  • The Drowned Star
  • The Ember Ring
  • The Fallen Star
  • The Giant's Footprint
  • The Glass Bowl
  • The Godsfist
  • The Hermit's Bowl
  • The Hundred Year Smoke
  • The Inkwell
  • The Iron Seed
  • The Maw of Morning
  • The Molten Crown
  • The Mourning Bowl
  • The Nested Bowls
  • The Nine Rings
  • The Old God's Eye
  • The Pilgrim's Ring

T, continued

  • The Prophet's Bowl
  • The Quiet Wound
  • The Red Wound
  • The Ringwall
  • The Round Mere
  • The Scorched Crown
  • The Shepherd's Bowl
  • The Singing Pit
  • The Sky Anvil
  • The Sky's Fist
  • The Sleeping Eye
  • The Smith's Dent
  • The Smoking Bowl
  • The Star Grave
  • The Star Well
  • The Steaming Kettle
  • The Sunken Crown
  • The Throat
  • The Thunder Bowl
  • The Thundermark
  • The Twin Scars
  • The Unhealed Scar
  • The Wanderer's Grave
  • The Weeping Scar
  • The Witch's Mirror
  • The World's Navel
  • Thin Air Crater
  • Thornbury Ring
  • Thunder Butte Sink
  • Thunderstone Hollow
  • Tin Can Creek Crater
  • Titan's Heel
  • Tranquil Bowl
  • Troll's Cauldron
  • Tuff Ring Lake
  • Turquoise Crater Lake
  • Twin Maars
  • Two Dog Bore Crater
  • Tycho Crater

U: 4 names

  • Uchida Crater
  • Ulloa Crater
  • Umarov Crater
  • Umbra Patera

V: 9 names

  • Vacuum Well
  • Vanterpool Basin
  • Varga Crater
  • Vent Seven
  • Verhoeven B
  • Verhoeven Crater
  • Vesper Patera
  • Vredefort Dome
  • Vulnus Stellae

W: 16 names

  • Wadi Rim Crater
  • Wattle Creek Astrobleme
  • Wetherby Crater
  • Wetherby T
  • Whitlock Crater
  • Widow Tully's Bowl
  • Windmill Tank Crater
  • Windstreak Crater
  • Winterbourne Crater
  • Witchfire Pit
  • Wizard's Hat Island Lake
  • Wolfe Creek Crater
  • Wolfstar Crater
  • Wolverine Lake Astrobleme
  • Wreck of the Heron
  • Wyrm's Cradle

X: 1 name

  • Xuereb Crater

Y: 4 names

  • Yamashiro Crater
  • Yamashiro E
  • Yeboah Crater
  • Yilmaz Crater

Z: 3 names

  • Zamora Basin
  • Zero Wind Crater
  • Zielinski Crater