Valley Name Generator

Valley names are mostly plain description in the language of whoever farmed them, and the generic word tells you where you are. English has a whole vocabulary by region and size: dale in Yorkshire and the Lakes (Wensleydale, Borrowdale), glen and strath in Scotland (Glen Coe, Strathspey), vale for broad fertile lowlands (Vale of York), hollow and cove in Appalachia (Cades Cove), bottom and run for small creek valleys. Welsh uses cwm, nant and dyffryn; Spanish and Italian use valle and val (Valle Sagrado, Val d'Orcia); German uses -tal (Ötztal, Zillertal); the Himalaya simply adds Valley to a river or town (Hunza, Kathmandu, Spiti).

The specific part almost always comes from the river (Loire, Wye), a settlement or tribe (Napa, Shenandoah), what grows or lives there (Valley of Flowers, Elk Meadow), the rock or light (Death Valley, Valley of Fire) or a person or event. The grand Valley of the X form is reserved for places with a story: Valley of the Kings, Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.

For fantasy maps, use the same logic: ordinary valleys get river and crop names, and the one valley that matters to the plot gets a mythic name like the Vale of Sorrows. This list gives you real valleys from five continents, every regional generic word, and original fantasy vales, hollows and glens.