Planet Name Generator with Meanings

Real planets and moons are almost never named at random. The eight planets carry the names of Roman gods, the moons of Uranus are Shakespearean characters, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are lovers, nymphs and Titans from Greek myth. Bright stars keep Arabic names given by medieval astronomers – Aldebaran means 'the follower', Fomalhaut 'the mouth of the fish', Algol 'the demon's head'. Fictional planets that feel real tend to borrow the same sources: Latin and Greek roots, mythological figures, and older words for earth, sky, fire and sea.

The list above pairs each name with the meaning behind it. Some are straight Latin (Ferrum, iron; Gelida, frozen), some are Greek personifications (Ananke, necessity; Aletheia, truth), and some are mythical lands from around the world (Aztlan, Shambhala, Tir na nOg). Suffixes such as Prime, Nova, Minor and Secundus follow astronomical convention and let one root name populate a whole star system.

A good planet name should be pronounceable, distinct from its neighbours in the same story, and quietly suggestive of what a traveller would find there – an ocean world called Thalassa or a mining colony called Cuprion tells the reader something before a single line of description. Use the meaning as a seed for the setting: climate, colonists, founding myth or the disaster everyone still talks about.