Fantasy Country Name Generator

Real country names come from a small number of sources: a founding people (France from the Franks, England from the Angles), a geographic feature (Iceland, Montenegro, Netherlands), a ruler or dynasty (Saudi Arabia, Bolivia), or an old word for 'the land of us' (Deutschland, Nihon). Fantasy country names that follow the same logic feel like they have history behind them. Names ending in -ia, -land, -mark, -holm, -reach and -vale each carry a different flavour: Latinate -ia for old empires and republics, Germanic -mark and -holm for northern kingdoms and border marches, -reach and -vale for frontier realms named by settlers.

The form of government belongs in the full name even if everyone uses the short form. 'Serene Republic of Meridiana', 'Khanate of Turghal' and 'Grand Duchy of Belmont' each tell you who rules, how big the place is and roughly what its neighbours think of it. Real maps also carry descriptive regions that are not countries at all, such as the Silver Marches or the Ashen Steppe, and mixing a few of these among your nations makes the map read as geography rather than a list of tidy borders.

This list groups names by linguistic family, from Latinate and Celtic through Norse, Slavic, Arabic, Persian, East Asian and Mesoamerican-inspired forms, so you can give each region of your world a consistent sound.