Dynasty Name Generator

A dynasty name is the name a ruling family is remembered by, and history shows a few ways to make one. Many come from a founder: the Carolingians from Charles Martel, the Abbasids from al-Abbas, the Timurids from Timur, the Jagiellons from Jogaila. Arabic and Persian lines add -id to the founder (Ayyubid, Samanid). Others take the family's first castle or county: Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Lancaster, Savoy, Anjou. Chinese dynasties name the state itself, often with a word of good omen: Han, Tang, Ming (bright), Qing (pure). A few come from a badge or nickname, like Plantagenet from the sprig of broom Geoffrey of Anjou wore in his hat.

Real dynasties from Europe, the Islamic world, India, East Asia and Africa come first as models. The original names are built the same way: Norman-French and Anglo-Norman seats (Aubrecourt, Thorncastle, Harrowgate), German and Italian lordships (Falkenrath, Lichtenau), Byzantine and Slavic patronymics, -id dynasties with invented founders, and East Asian state names. Each works bare, as House of X or as the X Dynasty, whichever register your setting prefers.

The best dynasty names are short, hard to confuse with a common word, and hint at where the family came from. Say it with a regnal number, as in Edmund III of the House of Ashgrove; it should sound three centuries old.