Japanese Place Name Generator

Japanese place names almost always tell you what kind of place they are, because the last element is a geographic word. Mountains end in -san, -yama or -dake (Fujisan, Takaosan, Yarigatake), rivers in -gawa or -kawa (Sumidagawa, Kamogawa), lakes in -ko (Biwako, Ashinoko), islands in -shima or -jima (Miyajima, Yakushima), capes in -misaki or -zaki (Erimo Misaki, Inubosaki) and bays in -wan (Sagami-wan). Shrines take -jinja, -jingu or -taisha, temples -ji, -dera or -in, castles -jo, bridges -bashi or -ohashi, mountain passes -toge and hot springs -onsen. Urban addresses use -ku for wards, -cho or -machi for neighborhoods, -dori for avenues and -zaka for sloping streets.

The front half of a name is usually a short description or a piece of history: a plant (sakura, matsu, yanagi, fuji wisteria), an animal (tsuru crane, kitsune fox, kamome gull), a color (aka red, shiro white, kuro black, ao blue-green), a direction (kita, minami, higashi, nishi) or something that once stood there, which is how Tokyo ended up with Jingumae (in front of the shrine) and Torii-mae. Newer suburbs favor pleasant images like Fujimigaoka (Fuji-view hill) and Hikarigaoka (hill of light).

The list mixes well-known real places across Japan with invented ones built on the same rules, so you can pull an authentic-sounding district, river or shrine for a novel, anime setting, game map or travel-style fiction.