Dwarf Fortress Name Generator

Dwarf Fortress names sound like nothing else in fantasy. When you embark, the game builds your fort's name from two random Dwarvish words and shows you the English translation, which is how the community ended up with legendary forts like Boatmurdered (Koganusàn), Headshoots, Nightgloom, Syrupleaf and Bronzemurder. The pattern is always a noun or adjective bolted to another noun, verb or participle without any concern for whether it makes sense: Roomcarnage, Ironhandle, Battlefailed, Gemclod. The clash between the mundane and the violent is the whole charm.

A convincing Dwarf Fortress name therefore breaks the usual rules of dwarven naming. Skip the majestic Ironforge and Mithral Hall register and reach instead for the game's word list: tools and household objects (boat, sock, paddle, lantern, sandal), materials (bronze, syrup, velvet, wax), and verbs of disaster or craft (murdered, shoots, failed, glazed, lashed, clasped). Two-syllable first halves with one-syllable second halves (Spearbreakers, Doomforests, Craftbeauty) read the most authentically. Dwarvish-language names use short syllables such as kogan, usàn, rith, lut, bir, zug and lar, so a fort can have both its 'true' name and its translation, exactly as in the game.

The names collected here include famous community forts, original English compounds built from the game's actual vocabulary, and pronounceable Dwarvish forms, so you can name your embark before the first strike of the pick or reference an old fort in an Armok Vision video, forum succession game or fan story.