Ogre Name Generator

Ogres are the brute giants of European folklore, and their names have always been made to be shouted. In fairy tales they are often unnamed (the ogre in Puss in Boots, the ogre of Sleeping Beauty), while English giant-tales gave us Cormoran, Blunderbore, Thunderdell and Galligantus, and Beowulf's Grendel is the archetype of the man-eating ogre. Modern fantasy settled on a phonetic recipe: one or two syllables, a hard g, k or thr at the start, a grunted vowel, and a blunt stop at the end. Grunk, Throg, Gorbash and Krogmar all follow it, and D&D, Pathfinder and Warhammer ogres sound exactly like this. Warcraft's two-headed ogre magi (Cho'gall, Kor'gall, Mar'gok) add an apostrophe to show two heads sharing one name.

Ogres are usually not clever, so their nicknames are literal and proud: Skullthumper, Bonegnaw, Cowsnatcher, Two-Heads, the Belcher. These epithets are how a village remembers the beast that raided it and how ogres brag to each other. Female ogres in fantasy tend to get a heavier -a or -ga ending (Gorga, Thruga, Grunhilda), and matriarchs earn honorifics like Big Mama or Old Nanny.

When picking, decide whether your ogre is a threat, a joke or a person. Threats get short grunts plus a violent epithet. Comic ogres get sillier compounds (Grumbleguts, Snorgash, Stinkfist). Ogres with real personality, like Shrek or a half-ogre PC, can carry a normal-sounding name that contrasts with their bulk.