D&D Orc Name Generator

Orc names in D&D 5e are short, blunt and built to be shouted across a battlefield. The Player's Handbook and Volo's Guide to Monsters give the canon: male names like Dench, Feng, Gell, Henk, Holg, Imsh, Keth, Krusk, Mhurren, Ront, Shump and Thokk, and female names like Baggi, Emen, Engong, Kansif, Myev, Neega, Ovak, Ownka, Shautha, Sutha, Vola, Volen and Yevelda. Notice the pattern: one or two syllables, hard stops (k, g, t), and vowels that sit low in the mouth. Orcish has no soft, lyrical sounds because Gruumsh's people have no use for them.

Orcs rarely carry family names. Instead they earn epithets that describe a deed or a wound (Half-Ear, Bonesnapper, Ninefingers) or declare tribal allegiance (of the Many-Arrows, of the Broken Fang). In the Forgotten Realms the great tribes include Many-Arrows, Broken Bone, Bloody Scar and Ripped Gut, and a war chief like Obould Many-Arrows takes his tribe's name as a title. Priests and shamans may bear titles from the orc pantheon: Eye of Gruumsh, Claw of Luthic, Blade of Ilneval.

A good orc name should be sayable in a single breath and sound like a threat. Half-orcs often carry an orcish given name alongside a human surname, or drop the orcish name entirely to fit in among humans, which is a story in itself.