Dwarven City Name Generator

Dwarven cities are almost never 'cities' in the human sense. They are holds, halls, delvings and gates carved into a mountain, and their names reflect that. Tolkien set the template with Khazad-dûm ('Dwarf-mansion') and its Sindarin twin Moria, plus Erebor, Belegost ('great fortress') and Nogrod ('hollow dwelling'). Warhammer's dwarfs added the most imitated pattern in the genre: Karak (fortress) or Barak (harbour) followed by a descriptor, as in Karak Kadrin, Karak Azul and Karaz-a-Karak, 'the Pinnacle of Fortresses'. Warcraft went the other way with plain, punchy English: Ironforge, Grim Batol, Aerie Peak.

The entries above mix all three approaches. Khuzdul-flavored names use Tolkien's real roots: -dûm for mansion or hall, zâram for lake, zirak for spike, baraz for red, kheled for glass, azan for dim. Karak- and Kazad- names borrow the Warhammer construction, and 'Dun' names echo the Gaelic word for fort that Warcraft used for Dun Morogh. English hold names fuse a material or feature with hold, vault, deep, hearth or holm.

When naming a dwarf city for your own setting, decide first what it is famous for. A mining hold might be Silverdeep or Karak Azgal (hoard-fortress); a river-port would be a Barak; a capital carries a grander, longer name like Halls of the Deep King. The name should tell a traveller what they will find behind the gate.