Grimdark Name Generator

Grimdark names do a different job from high-fantasy names. Instead of promising nobility or destiny, they tell you someone has been used, scarred and probably betrayed. The genre's best names are short and ugly in the mouth: Glokta, Guts, Croaker, Shivers, Gorst. Surnames lean on harsh consonants and bleak meanings (Gaunt, Scathe, Carrion, Sallow), and given names come from sources that already sound worn down: Puritan virtue names, late-medieval English peasant names, Germanic and Slavic forms, and Latin names of the kind Warhammer borrows for its inquisitors and commissars.

Nicknames matter more than in any other fantasy subgenre. Logen Ninefingers, Black Dow, Three-Tooth Hal and One-Eye are named for wounds, habits and crimes rather than for heroism, because in grimdark a name is something other people hang on you. Epithets work the same way: the Butcher of Adua or the Thrice-Hanged carry a whole backstory, and they are usually ironic or accusatory rather than flattering. Mercenary companies and cults follow suit, with names like the Tallowmen or the Widow's Company.

This list blends three registers: original full names with grim surnames, mud-and-gutter nicknames for soldiers, thieves and camp followers, and a sampling of the canon characters from Abercrombie, Miura, Games Workshop, Glen Cook and FromSoftware that define the genre's sound, so you can match your own names to theirs.