Roman City Name Generator

Roman city names fall into a few clear types, and knowing them lets you coin new ones that sound like they belong on a Peutinger map. The oldest are Italic and Etruscan names simply Latinised (Roma, Capua, Veii, Tarquinii). Conquered towns kept native names with a Latin ending, which is why so much of the Empire sounds Celtic: -dunum means fort (Lugdunum, Noviodunum), -magus means field or market (Iuliomagus, Caesaromagus), -briva means bridge (Samarobriva), -durum means gate or fort (Sorviodurum, Durocortorum). New foundations were named for their founder or patron and a descriptor: Augusta Treverorum (Augustus's city of the Treveri, now Trier), Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), Forum Iulii (Fréjus), Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), Aelia Capitolina (Hadrian's refounding of Jerusalem).

The smallest places were named for what was there: Aquae (springs; Aquae Sulis is Bath), Castra (a legionary camp; Castra Regina is Regensburg), Portus (harbour), Pons (bridge), Ad Fines ("at the border"), Tres Tabernae ("three shops"). Cities also took honorific epithets in the same way people did: Iulia, Flavia, Ulpia, Aurelia and Aelia mark the imperial family that founded or refounded them, while Felix, Victrix, Concordia and Pax announced good fortune or victory. Late-imperial refoundings used the Greek -polis (Constantinopolis, Adrianopolis).

Most of the names here are real, and the invented ones follow the same rules, so a fantasy empire built with Castra Solis, Forum Traiani and Aquae Aureliae will read as convincingly Roman.