Empire Name Generator

Real empires were almost never called "the Golden Empire" by anyone who lived in them. They were named after a ruling people or dynasty (the Achaemenid Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal Empire), after a capital or homeland (the Roman Empire, the Empire of Trebizond) or after a grand ideological claim (the Holy Roman Empire, the Celestial Empire, the Empire of Ten Thousand Years). Fantasy and science fiction follow the same three patterns: the Tevinter Imperium, the Galactic Empire, the Empire of Man, the Malazan Empire, the Sith Empire, and the Fire Nation are all people-names, place-names or claims. That is why the strongest invented empire names usually start with a made-up ethnonym or dynasty (Vashti, Kaldross, Ostragia) and let the word Empire, Imperium, Dominion or Hegemony carry the political weight.

The form of the second word matters too. Empire is neutral and human. Imperium suggests something older, more Roman or more militarized, and has been claimed by Warhammer 40,000 and Dragon Age. Dominion, Ascendancy and Hegemony sound like a rising or authoritarian power; Commonwealth or Concordat sound like an empire trying not to call itself one. Descriptive titles like Empire of the Setting Sun or Empire of Blood and Iron work best as poetic epithets that citizens or enemies use, sitting alongside a formal dynastic name.

This list mixes invented ethnonym empires, formal titles, epithets and pairings so you can give an empire both an official name and the name its neighbours whisper.