Uruk-hai Name Generator

The Uruk-hai are the large, sun-tolerant fighting orcs bred by Saruman at Isengard, and Tolkien gave them only a handful of names: Uglúk, the captain who drives Merry and Pippin across Rohan, his lieutenant Lugdush, the runner Mauhúr and, in the films, Lurtz and the warg-rider Sharku. Mordor also fields Uruks, and Shagrat of Cirith Ungol is named as one. The word itself is Black Speech: uruk means orc and hai is a people, so Uruk-hai is simply 'orc-folk'.

The sound is what matters. Uruk names are short, back-of-the-throat grunts built on the consonants g, k, gh, kh, r, z, sh and d with the dull vowels u, a and o; a circumflex or acute marks a long vowel, as in Uglúk, Mauhúr, Bûrz and Nazgûl. Endings like -úk, -dush, -gash, -rat and -hûr recur, and the film's Lurtz shows how a name can end on a hard consonant cluster. Uruks have no family names; a captain earns an epithet instead, such as One-Eye, Man-Flesh or the Climber.

The list opens with the canon Uruks, then adds original names in the same phonology, Isengard captains with epithets, and longer Black Speech compounds built from roots like ghâsh (fire), burz (dark), lug (tower), durb (rule) and nazg (ring) for Uruks of the White Hand who have risen through the ranks.