Mining Town Name Generator

Real mining towns were named in a hurry by the people who staked the first claims, so the names are blunt and specific. The commonest pattern is the metal plus a landform: Goldfield, Silver Plume, Leadville, Tin Cup. Next come names for the diggings themselves, since a camp often grew up around a single bar, gulch, reef or shaft and kept the name: Poverty Flat, Deep Lead, Last Chance Gulch. Coal country works differently. Company towns in Appalachia and the Pennsylvania anthracite patches were named after the operator, a director's daughter, or just a number, which is why Number Six Camp and Scrip Town ring true.

The best names carry the mood of the place. Hard Luck Camp and Busted Flush tell you how the miners felt; Prosperity and Welcome Stranger Flat tell you what they hoped for, and read as irony once the town is a ruin. Regional flavor comes from vocabulary: Wheal for Cornwall, Cwm for Wales, Gully and Reef for the Australian goldfields, Bench for the Klondike, Mina and Veta for Latin America, Grube for the German Erzgebirge.

This list mixes all of those traditions with miners' own jargon (tipple, headframe, tommyknocker, cousin jack) so you can name a whole district, from the county seat down to the tent camp at the end of the tramway.