Viking Ship Name Generator

The sagas record few Viking ship names, and almost all of them are animals. Olaf Tryggvason's great warship was Ormrinn Langi, the Long Serpent; his earlier ship was Ormrinn Skammi, the Short Serpent, and his fleet also held Traninn, the Crane. Olaf the Saint sailed Visundr, the Bison, with a gilded bison head on the prow. A ship was named for the beast carved on its stem, so the name and the figurehead were the same thing: a dreki (dragon) was a dragon ship because of its head; crews removed the head before landing so it would not frighten the land spirits.

Skaldic poetry adds the second naming tradition, the kenning. A ship was a sea-stallion (sæhestr), wave-steed, oar-horse, or Ægir's horse; the sea was the whale road or swan road. The names here draw on both: Old Norse forms with the definite article suffix (Drekinn, Hrafninn), compounds built from sea, wave, fjord and storm, and names borrowed from gods, valkyries, legendary weapons and the wave-daughters of Rán. Mythic ships like Skíðblaðnir, Naglfar and Hringhorni belong here too.

For a realistic crew, favour a short animal name or a kenning and let the English translation serve as the spoken name; for fiction or games, the grander compounds and place-farers (Vínlandsfari, Raven of Jorvik) tell readers where the ship has been.