Settlement Name Generator

A settlement is not always a town. Maps need names for the places in between: a logging camp that became a village, a fort with a few families under its walls, a ferry landing, a mining claim that might be gone in ten years. Real place names record that history, so the best fantasy settlement names say what the place is and why anyone lives there. Fort Calder was a garrison first. Sawyer's Mill grew around one family's business. New Dunholm was founded by people who left the old one.

The name usually has two parts: a descriptor and a settlement word. The descriptor is a landform (fen, tor, holm), a trade (kiln, forge), a founder (Aldwyn's, Abbots-), or a condition the settlers cared about (Coldwater, Last Hope). The settlement word tells you size and function. Outpost, camp and station are temporary or military. Landing and crossing sit on water or a road. Steading and croft are farms. Hold, dun and caer are fortified. Hamlet, -by and -thorpe are small and rural.

Vary the ages of your names. Old settlements have worn-down single words (Kholm, Brannoch); newer ones keep a founder's name or a clear compound. Put a few New, Little and Upper prefixes near older places of the same name and you have instant history.