Fantasy House Name Generator

In fantasy, a 'house' is a dynasty: a noble family, the lands it holds, and the seat it rules from. Game of Thrones made the 'House Stark of Winterfell' formula famous, but the pattern is much older. Real medieval houses took their names from a place (Plantagenet aside, most English nobility were 'de' somewhere), from a founder (the Capetians from Hugh Capet), or from a distinctive feature or nickname that stuck. Good fantasy house names follow the same rules, which is why Ravencourt, Blackmere, and Highmarch feel like they have a history.

This list gives you three things to work with. First, bare house names in several linguistic flavors: English landscape compounds (Ashgrave, Coldwater), Norman-French sounding names (Devereux, Valcourt), Germanic and Slavic names for a harsher northern court (Steinhardt, Volkov), Roman-flavored names for an old imperial line (Aurelian, Corvinus), and elven-sounding names for fey nobility (Serathis, Elandris). Second, full titles in the 'House X of Y' style. Third, seat names such as Cinder Hall or the Anvil Gate that you can pair with any house.

A useful trick is to name the seat first and derive the house from it, or the reverse, so the two share a root. When every family in your court has a distinct linguistic flavor, readers can tell the old blood from the upstarts by the sound of the name alone.