True Name Generator

A true name is the name a thing really is, as opposed to the one it answers to. The idea runs through Egyptian myth (Isis tricking Ra's hidden name out of him), Jewish mysticism, the Rumpelstiltskin tale, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, where a wizard's power depends on knowing things in the Old Speech, and modern urban fantasy where speaking a fae's or demon's true name three times compels it. In every version the rules are the same: the name is rarely spoken, it is given only in trust or stolen at great cost, and hearing it feels like being seen all the way through.

That is why a true name should sound older and heavier than the use-name beside it. Earthsea-style coinages (Vethrael, Ossandrine, Kaelmoros) use open vowels and soft consonants. Mesopotamian and Hebraic cadences (Ninvalu, Ur-Kethani, Orvaziel) feel like words from a clay tablet or a grimoire. Celtic and Norse echoes (Bryneth, Hwaeleth, Halvarsk) suit fae courts and northern dragons. Epithet-names (Hollow-of-Winter, Wolf-at-the-Door) work for spirits defined by what they do.

Pick the name to contrast with the character's everyday one. A tavern-keeper called Hob whose true name is Sevrannoth tells the reader, in one line, that Hob is not what he seems.