Hellhound Name Generator

Hellhounds have a real folklore pedigree, and the best names borrow from it. Cerberus and Orthrus guard the Greek underworld; Garm waits at the gates of Hel in Norse myth; the Welsh Cŵn Annwn hunt souls across the sky; and Britain's black dogs (Black Shuck, Barghest, Padfoot, Gytrash, the Church Grim) haunt crossroads, churchyards, and lonely roads. Central America has the Cadejo, and Egypt's Anubis and the Vedic Sarama are canine psychopomps. These are ready-made names with the right weight, and they signal to a reader that you have done the reading.

Invented hellhound names tend to fall into three registers. Fire words (Brimstone, Cinder, Scorch, Sulfur) suit the D&D creature that breathes flame. Underworld place names and demon names (Acheron, Erebus, Marchosias, Naberius, whose demonic form is a three-headed dog) suit an infernal servant. And short, ugly action words (Gnash, Maul, Rend) work for a monster that is more animal than demon.

Avoid piling on adjectives like Shadow and Dark; a hellhound named Knell or Baskerville is scarier than one named Darkshadow Bloodfang because it sounds like something a person might actually whisper.