Ghost Ship Name Generator

Cursed, derelict and phantom vessels for stories and games

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Generate names for ghost ships, from fog-bound phantoms like The Haar Wraith and The Bell That Tolls Itself to abandoned derelicts such as The Table Still Set and doomed wanderers like Vanderdecken's Oath. Made for horror stories, tabletop campaigns, pirate games and Halloween props.

About ghost ship names

Ghost ship stories come in two kinds, and the names follow. The first is the phantom: a vessel that should not be there at all, like the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ship doomed to sail forever without making port. The second is the derelict: a real hull found drifting with nobody aboard, like the Mary Celeste, the brigantine discovered deserted in the Atlantic in 1872 with her cargo still in the hold. Phantoms suit grand, fatal names. Derelicts are more unsettling when the name is ordinary, so the list includes plain merchant names such as Hester Vane and Lydia Marsh.

The 500 names cover twelve themes: drowned crews, fog and weather, widows and mourning, bells and lights, abandoned derelicts, eternal voyages, curses and sailors' superstitions, rot and wreckage, cold and deep water, quiet omens, spectres from folklore, and modern working ships prefixed MV, SS or FV. A few famous legends, including the Caleuche of Chilean folklore and the Lady Lovibond of the Goodwin Sands, sit among them as style anchors.

About six in ten names use the form The Something, the way ghost ships are usually spoken of in tales. Drop the article if you are lettering a model or a prop, since a hull normally carries the bare name.

How to choose ghost ship names

  • Decide whether your ship is a phantom or a derelict before you pick. A spectral vessel that appears in storms can carry a heavy name like The Damned Voyage; an empty hull found drifting is creepier as something everyday, such as Amelia Grace or The Quiet Brig.
  • Let the name hint at what happened to the crew. The Forty Drowned, The Frozen Watch and Half-Eaten Supper each tell players or readers what they will find below decks before anyone boards.
  • Give the ship a living name and a dead one. Sailors in your story can whisper The Widow's Vigil while the faded transom still reads something cheerful; the gap between the two is a free piece of backstory.
  • Match the prefix to the era. MV, SS and FV names fit rusting freighters and trawlers in a modern horror setting, while article-led names fit the age of sail and fantasy worlds.
  • Say it aloud in the voice of a lookout. A name that works shouted across a deck, short and with a hard stress, will land better at the table than one that needs explaining.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good name for a ghost ship?

Good ghost ship names sound like something a frightened sailor would say under his breath. Names built on the crew's fate (The Drowned Choir, All Hands Lost), on warning signs (The Thirteenth Bell, The False Beacon) or on grief ashore (The Widow's Vigil, She Waits Still) all work because they imply a story. Keep it short enough to be repeated as a rumor.

What are the most famous ghost ships?

The best known is the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ship said to sail forever without reaching port. Among real vessels, the Mary Celeste was found deserted in the Atlantic in 1872, the schooner Carroll A. Deering ran aground off Cape Hatteras in 1921 with her crew missing, and the steamer Baychimo was abandoned in Arctic ice in 1931 and reported adrift for decades afterward. The Flying Dutchman, The Mary Celeste and SS Baychimo are in the list as style anchors next to the invented names.

Can I use these names for a D&D or pirate campaign?

Yes. The names are original ideas for your own stories, tabletop adventures, video game ships and Halloween builds, and nothing here is tied to a specific rule set. Folklore-flavored entries such as The Draugr, Sea Wight and Charon's Tender fit fantasy settings, while MV Dead Slow Ahead or SS Last Transmission suit a modern horror one-shot.

Should a ghost ship name start with The?

In stories, ghost ships are nearly always spoken of with the article, as in the Flying Dutchman, so most entries here use it. A real ship carries the bare name on her hull, so drop the article for a model, a prop or a ship's register in your game. Both forms appear in the list.

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All 500 ghost ship names

This is the complete list the generator above draws its random batches from, sorted A to Z and grouped by first letter.

Plain text, one name per line.

A: 9 names

  • Abandon Hope
  • Abigail Frost
  • Adrift Without a Soul
  • Against the Wind Forever
  • Ageless Hull
  • Agnes Morrow
  • All Hands Lost
  • Amelia Grace
  • Ancient Mariner's Debt

B: 12 names

  • Bad Tidings
  • Banshee's Keen
  • Barnacle Queen
  • Bell Buoy
  • Bereaved
  • Black Crepe
  • Black Ribbon
  • Black Squall
  • Blank Transom
  • Blasphemer's Wake
  • Bound for Fiddler's Green
  • Broken Back

C: 15 names

  • Cabin Boy's Lament
  • Canvas Shroud
  • Captain's Shade
  • Castaway's Return
  • Celeste's Sister
  • Charity's Ghost
  • Charlotte Wynne
  • Charon's Tender
  • Clara Ashdown
  • Cold Galley
  • Cold Quartermaster
  • Cold Sleep
  • Compline
  • Corpse Candle
  • Corroded Crown

D: 9 names

  • Davy Jones' Tender
  • De Verloren Zoon
  • De Zwarte Weduwe
  • Dead Lights
  • Desolation
  • Distress Flare
  • Doomsday Tack
  • Dusk Drifter
  • Dutchman's Bargain

E: 5 names

  • Eliza Thorne
  • Emigrant's Sorrow
  • Eternal Voyage
  • Evensong
  • Evil Eye

F: 23 names

  • Faith Forsaken
  • Fathomless
  • Fever Dream
  • Fever Ship
  • Fiddler's Green
  • Finders Weepers
  • Fire Ship of the Bay
  • Floating Tomb
  • Fogbound Mary
  • Foghorn
  • Forever to Windward
  • Forgotten
  • Forsaken
  • Forsworn
  • Found Adrift
  • Friday Sailing
  • Frostbitten
  • Full Fathom Five
  • Funeral Barge
  • FV Empty Nets
  • FV Grand Banks Ghost
  • FV Last Haul
  • FV Widow's Catch

G: 4 names

  • Glacier's Gift
  • Glowing Wake
  • Goodwin Haunt
  • Graveyard of the Atlantic

H: 16 names

  • Half-Eaten Supper
  • Harriet Penhale
  • Hatteras Wraith
  • Haunting of the Bay
  • Headstone
  • Heat Lightning
  • Hellbound
  • Helmsman's Shade
  • Hester Vane
  • Hexed Hull
  • HMS Pale Horse
  • HMS Requiescat
  • Hoarfrost
  • Hollow Crew
  • Hope's End
  • Horse Latitudes

I: 2 names

  • Icebound Octavia
  • Isabel Crane

J: 2 names

  • Jilted Bride
  • Jonah's Berth

K: 2 names

  • Keepsake
  • Kelp Shroud

L: 7 names

  • Lady in the Rigging
  • Last Letter Home
  • Lethe's Daughter
  • Letter Bearer
  • Letters for the Dead
  • Lightship Adrift
  • Lydia Marsh

M: 17 names

  • Malediction
  • Martha Pell
  • Mercy Withheld
  • Missing Lifeboat
  • Moonless Crossing
  • Muffled Bell
  • Mutineers' Rest
  • MV Dark Transponder
  • MV Dead Slow Ahead
  • MV Flag of No Nation
  • MV Lonesome Drift
  • MV Nobody's Daughter
  • MV Not Under Command
  • MV Pale Meridian
  • MV Radio Silence
  • MV Stateless
  • MV Static on Sixteen

N: 9 names

  • Nevermore
  • Ninth Bell
  • No Hands on Deck
  • No One Aboard
  • No Safe Harbor
  • No Wind in Her Sails
  • Nobody Home
  • None Returned
  • Nora Blythe

O: 4 names

  • Oblivion
  • Old Nick's Ferry
  • Ossuary
  • Out of the Fog

P: 9 names

  • Paddle Wheel Phantom
  • Pale Annabel
  • Pale Bosun
  • Patience Exhausted
  • Pearls That Were His Eyes
  • Phantom Brig
  • Port Denied
  • Portent
  • Prudence Hale

R: 12 names

  • Ragged Shroud
  • Red Sky at Morning
  • Reef Wraith
  • Requiem
  • Restless Dead
  • Revenant
  • Riptide Wraith
  • Risen From the Seabed
  • Risen Wreck
  • RMS Lamentation
  • Roll of the Lost
  • Rotten Keel

S: 31 names

  • Sable Island Shade
  • Sail on the Horizon
  • Sailor's Sweetheart
  • Salvage Curse
  • Sea Wight
  • Sepulchre
  • Seventh Year Ashore
  • Shadow on the Swell
  • Shape in the Mist
  • She Waits Still
  • Shipworm's Feast
  • Silence
  • Skeleton Watch
  • Snuffed Wick
  • Sodden Oak
  • Sorrow's Wake
  • Souls' Toll
  • Spectral Schooner
  • SS Baychimo
  • SS Cold Boilers
  • SS Cold Harbor
  • SS Finished With Engines
  • SS Hollow Tide
  • SS Last Transmission
  • SS Mayday Unanswered
  • SS Rust and Silence
  • SS Stoker's Ghost
  • St. Elmo's Fire
  • Styx Packet
  • Susannah Grey
  • Swinging Door

T: 294 names

  • The Abyss Gazer
  • The Abyssal
  • The Accursed
  • The Acheron
  • The Afterimage
  • The Albatross Slayer
  • The Anathema
  • The Arctic Drifter
  • The Azores Drifter
  • The Bad Dream
  • The Barnacled Coffin
  • The Barrow Wight
  • The Bell That Tolls Itself
  • The Berg Haunter
  • The Bermuda Drifter
  • The Black Rot
  • The Black Spot
  • The Black Water
  • The Blood Price
  • The Blue Ice
  • The Blue Lantern
  • The Bosun's Last Call
  • The Bridal Shroud
  • The Bride of the Deep
  • The Broken Oath
  • The Brume
  • The Burning Schooner
  • The Caleuche
  • The Candle in the Window
  • The Cape of Storms
  • The Cape Wanderer
  • The Captain's Blasphemy
  • The Captain's Empty Chair
  • The Casket
  • The Cenotaph
  • The Centuries Adrift

T, continued

  • The Charnel House
  • The Cold Lamp
  • The Convict's Ghost
  • The Cook Who Never Left
  • The Coral Coffin
  • The Corpse Light
  • The Cracked Bell
  • The Crypt Afloat
  • The Damned Voyage
  • The Dark of the Moon
  • The Dead Albatross
  • The Dead Calm
  • The Dead Letter
  • The Dead Man's Watch
  • The Deadlight
  • The Dearly Departed
  • The Deepwater Shade
  • The Derelict
  • The Despair
  • The Devil's Due
  • The Devil's Own Packet
  • The Devil's Sea
  • The Diamond Shoals Shade
  • The Dirge
  • The Dismasted
  • The Doldrums
  • The Doppelganger
  • The Dory Left Behind
  • The Draugr
  • The Drifting Hulk
  • The Drowned Apprentice
  • The Drowned Choir
  • The Drowned Watch
  • The Dutchman's Shadow
  • The Echo
  • The Ember Tide
  • The Empty Deck

T, continued

  • The Empty Hammocks
  • The Empty Trawler
  • The Endless Tack
  • The False Beacon
  • The False Dawn
  • The False Light
  • The Fata Morgana
  • The Ferryman's Fee
  • The Fetch
  • The Fifty Year Return
  • The Fishwife's Curse
  • The Flying Dutchman
  • The Fogbound
  • The Foreboding
  • The Forget-Me-Not
  • The Fortune Spent
  • The Forty Drowned
  • The Foxfire
  • The Frozen Log
  • The Frozen Watch
  • The Gale Wraith
  • The Glassy Sea
  • The Gloaming Tide
  • The Goodwin Sands
  • The Graveyard Watch
  • The Grey Becalmed
  • The Grey Horizon
  • The Grey Lady Adrift
  • The Grey Veil
  • The Grieving Mother
  • The Groaning Timbers
  • The Guttering Candle
  • The Haar
  • The Haar Wraith
  • The Half-Remembered
  • The Hanged Mutineer
  • The Harbinger

T, continued

  • The Harbor Refused
  • The Haunted Helm
  • The Headless Helmsman
  • The Hollander's Doom
  • The Hollow Chime
  • The Homeward Never
  • The Hundred Year Tack
  • The Hush
  • The Ill Omen
  • The Ill Wind
  • The Inconsolable
  • The Jinx
  • The Jonah
  • The Keening
  • The Knell
  • The Lady Lovibond
  • The Lashed Wheel
  • The Last Ferry
  • The Last Lamp Burning
  • The Last Log Entry
  • The Last Muster
  • The Last Sleigh Ride
  • The Lazaretto
  • The Lee Shore
  • The Lightkeeper's Regret
  • The Lightless
  • The Long Dark
  • The Long Goodnight
  • The Long Lament
  • The Long Way Round
  • The Lookout Still Aloft
  • The Looming
  • The Lover's Knot
  • The Maelstrom's Leavings
  • The Man Overboard
  • The Marooned Soul
  • The Mary Celeste

T, continued

  • The Masthead Glow
  • The Mausoleum
  • The Meal Left Warm
  • The Melancholy
  • The Memory
  • The Midnight Bell
  • The Midnight Ferry
  • The Mirage
  • The Misery
  • The Misfortune
  • The Mist Walker
  • The Moonless
  • The Moth-Eaten Ensign
  • The Mournful Horn
  • The Mourning Dove
  • The Mourning Ring
  • The Murk
  • The Murmur
  • The Naglfar
  • The Name Scraped Off
  • The Nameless
  • The Night Terror
  • The Nixie's Lure
  • The Oathbreaker
  • The Octavius
  • The Ones Who Stayed Aboard
  • The Open Hatch
  • The Pack Ice Phantom
  • The Palatine Light
  • The Pale Fire
  • The Pallbearer
  • The Pallid Mate
  • The Passage Seeker
  • The Passing Bell
  • The Penitent
  • The Phantom of the Shoals

T, continued

  • The Phantom Tide
  • The Plague Ship
  • The Polar Night
  • The Prison Hulk
  • The Prize Nobody Wanted
  • The Providence Lost
  • The Quarantine Flag
  • The Quiet Brig
  • The Reliquary
  • The Restless
  • The Returning
  • The Revenant Queen
  • The Ribcage
  • The Rime
  • The Rust Wraith
  • The Rusted Anchor
  • The Sailmaker's Last Stitch
  • The Sailor's Warning
  • The Salt-Eyed Crew
  • The Salvor's Regret
  • The Sarcophagus
  • The Sargasso Drifter
  • The Sargasso Tomb
  • The Sea Change
  • The Sea Fret
  • The Sealed Hold
  • The Selkie's Grief
  • The Seventh Drowned Son
  • The Shade of the Sound
  • The Ship Twice Renamed
  • The Shoal Haunter
  • The Shrouded Hands
  • The Sigh
  • The Signal Unanswered
  • The Silent Muster
  • The Sin Eater
  • The Skeleton Coast

T, continued

  • The Sleepless Watch
  • The Sleepwalker
  • The Smother
  • The Snapped Mast
  • The Somnambulist
  • The Sorrow
  • The Soul Tithe
  • The Spectre of the Strait
  • The Squall Line
  • The Stern Lantern
  • The Stillness
  • The Storm That Never Broke
  • The Sunken Roll Call
  • The Sweetheart's Farewell
  • The Table Still Set
  • The Tattered Mainsail
  • The Thirteen Hammocks
  • The Thirteenth Bell
  • The Thousand Fathoms
  • The Threadbare Sail
  • The Threnody
  • The Thrice Cursed
  • The Tidewraith
  • The Timeless
  • The Tolling Bell
  • The Trailing Rope
  • The Tryworks Glow
  • The Twilight Hull
  • The Two Coins
  • The Unanswered Letter
  • The Unblessed Launch
  • The Unclaimed
  • The Undertaker
  • The Uneasy Spirit
  • The Unfinished Log
  • The Unhallowed
  • The Unheld Lantern

T, continued

  • The Unlatched Cabin
  • The Unmanned
  • The Unmarked Grave
  • The Unmoored
  • The Unquiet Grave
  • The Unwelcome Sail
  • The Verdigris
  • The Wages of Sin
  • The Wailing Woman
  • The Wake
  • The Wanderer's Penance
  • The Wandering Hollander
  • The Weather Glass Falling
  • The Wedding Veil
  • The Weed-Choked
  • The Weed-Hung Bowsprit
  • The Weeping Gunner
  • The Weeping Timbers
  • The Wet Grave
  • The Whaler's Ghost
  • The Wheel That Turns Alone
  • The Whisper
  • The Whistler
  • The White Lady of the Shoals
  • The Whiteout
  • The Widow's Vigil
  • The Widow's Walk
  • The Windless
  • The Witchfire
  • The Woman at the Rail
  • The Wormwood
  • The Wraith of the Narrows
  • The Wreck That Floats
  • The Young Teazer
  • Till Judgment Day
  • Torn Pennant
  • Trench Risen

U: 5 names

  • Unburied
  • Unforgiven
  • Unquiet
  • Unshriven
  • Untouched Cargo

V: 4 names

  • Vanderdecken's Oath
  • Vanishing Point
  • Veil of Spray
  • Vespers

W: 8 names

  • Weeping Bride
  • Whaleman's Widow
  • Whispering Hull
  • Whistle Up a Wind
  • Will-o'-the-Wisp
  • Winter Harbor
  • Woebegone
  • Wrecker's Lantern

Y: 1 name

  • Yellow Jack