City Name Generator
City and town names built from real English place-name elements, with the meaning of every part shown: -ton, -ham, -ford, -caster and more.
4,818 combinations in this form
- Fuldon
Ful foul + don hill
foul hill
- Merwell
Mer lake + well spring
lake spring
- Deepchurch
Deep far down + church place of worship
far down place of worship
- Sedgeleigh
Sedge marsh grass + leigh clearing
marsh grass clearing
- Alderthwaite
Alder alder tree + thwaite cleared land
alder tree cleared land
- Eastbarrow
East sunrise side + barrow burial mound
sunrise side burial mound
- Fairbridge
Fair pleasant + bridge stone crossing
pleasant stone crossing
- Applewell
Apple apple tree + well spring
apple tree spring
- Fulwick
Ful foul + wick dairy farm
foul dairy farm
- Reedwick
Reed reeds + wick dairy farm
reeds dairy farm
- Sedgemouth
Sedge marsh grass + mouth river mouth
marsh grass river mouth
- Nethergrove
Nether lower + grove stand of trees
lower stand of trees
- Chipkirk
Chip market + kirk church
market church
- Elmwell
Elm elm tree + well spring
elm tree spring
- Kirkcombe
Kirk church + combe narrow valley
church narrow valley
- Holside
Hol hollow + side hillside
hollow hillside
- Hayington
Hay cut grass + ington folk's farmstead
cut grass folk's farmstead
- Heathburn
Heath heather + burn stream
heather stream
- Wulfcombe
Wulf wolf + combe narrow valley
wolf narrow valley
- Coldscar
Cold wintry + scar rocky cliff
wintry rocky cliff
- Deepham
Deep far down + ham homestead
far down homestead
- Bradby
Brad broad + by village
broad village
- Reedcaster
Reed reeds + caster roman fort
reeds roman fort
- Coldness
Cold wintry + ness headland
wintry headland
How English place names are built
¶Almost every English town name is a compound of two parts: a descriptive first element and a habitative or landscape second element. Ashford is the ford where ash trees grow. Oxford is the ford where oxen cross. Bradford is simply the broad ford. Once you know that the first half describes and the second half classifies, the map of England stops being a list of noises and turns into a survey of woods, crossings, hills and farms recorded a thousand years ago.
The second elements are the ones worth learning. Old English tun gave -ton, an enclosure or farmstead; ham a homestead; wic a specialised farm, usually dairy; burh a fortified place, now -bury or -borough; ceaster a Roman fort, now -caster, -chester or -cester. Scandinavian settlement added -by for a village, -thorpe for an outlying farm, -thwaite for a clearing and -beck for a stream. The suffix tells you who founded the place and roughly when.
Landscape elements are the oldest layer and the easiest to use in fiction. Dun gave -don, a hill; leah gave -ley, a clearing in woodland; cumb a narrow valley; mor open moorland; hyrst a wooded hill. Pair one of those with a tree, an animal, a colour or an owner and the result will read as a real settlement rather than a fantasy invention, because that is exactly the process by which real settlements were named.
Questions
What does -ton mean at the end of a town name?
It comes from Old English tun, which meant an enclosure and then a farmstead, and finally a village. Brighton, Preston and Northampton all carry it. Because it is so common it works with almost any first element, which is why it is the safest ending to reach for when you need a name that sounds unmistakably English.
What is the difference between -ham and -ton?
Ham is from Old English ham, a homestead or estate, and it tends to mark older settlements founded in the earliest period of English settlement. Tun started as a simple enclosure and spread much later and much more widely. As a rough rule, a -ham name is older and rarer, and a -ton name is younger and everywhere.
How do you make up a fantasy city name that sounds real?
Pick a genuine second element and a first element that describes something a settler would actually have noticed: a tree, a river crossing, an animal, a colour of soil, an owner. Salt, chalk, hart, raven, broad and cold all work. Avoid abstractions. Real places are named for what was visibly there, not for how they felt.
What does -caster or -chester tell you about a town?
That there was a Roman fort on the site. All three forms, -caster, -chester and -cester, descend from Latin castra through Old English ceaster. Lancaster, Manchester and Gloucester are the same ending worn down by different regional accents. If you use it in fiction, you are implying an older empire whose walls the current town was built inside.
Why do so many northern English towns end in -by?
Because they were named by Norse speakers. Old Norse byr meant a farmstead or village, and it clusters exactly where the Danelaw held territory: Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cumbria. The same layer gave -thorpe, -thwaite, -beck, -gill and -holm. Using those endings in a story signals a region settled by incomers speaking a different language from the people already there.