DnD Village Name Generator

Most D&D adventures start in a village, and the name does more work than the map. Published settings lean on an English rural template because it reads as 'home' to players instantly: Phandalin, Red Larch, Greenest, Hommlet and Saltmarsh all follow it. The pattern is a plain, concrete first element (a tree, a river feature, a trade, an animal, a founder) joined to a settlement word such as -ford, -wick, -combe, -mere, -stead, -hollow or -cross. Barrowford tells you there is a ford and an old grave; Tanner's Ford tells you who built it and what it smells like.

Good village names also sound different from town and city names. A city can be Waterdeep or Neverwinter; a village should be smaller in the mouth, often two short syllables or a two-word phrase with a possessive (Hobb's Landing, Pilgrim's Rest). Directional and size prefixes (Little Dunmere, Upper Sallow, Nether Wyke) are a cheap way to imply that a bigger settlement exists nearby.

This list mixes that rustic register with regional flavour: Norse- and Celtic-tinged names for the frontier, dwarven holds, elvish glades, halfling farm hamlets, coastal fishing villages, desert wells and haunted fens for the session where the party arrives after dark.