Name and Language Tools

Fancy yourself a junior Tolkien? Need a realistic sounding sci-fi name for that thinga-ma-jiggy your hero is going to use to save the galaxy? Then you've come to the right place. On this page you'll find everything you need to know to name...well..everything. And if good 'ole Klingon isn't exotic enough for you, here's your chance to make something even better!

Fantasy and SF Name Generators

Here are links to some very cool name generators. They're all free and available online.

Probably the best generator site is Seventh Sanctum. That site has a collection of random name generators for everything from landscape generators to corporate name generators to pirate ship naming generators. Check it out.

Fantasy Character Name Generators

• Rinkworks

• Totro, the Fantasy Random Name Generator

• Random Name Generator at Squid.org

• The Forge

Fantasy Place Name Generators

• Serendipity's Place Generator

• Seventh Sanctum

Science Fiction Name Generator

• Generators at Warpcore SF

Villain Name Generator

How can you resist?

• Stone Dragon Press (check downloads page)

SF McGuffin Generator

A McGuffin is the thing everyone in your story is after. The Maltese Falcon, for instance. Or the Millennium Falcon.
This one generates SF-themed McGuffins like Flux Pulse Emitters and Sub-Quantum Shield Portals.

• McGuffin Generator at Warpcore SF

New Word Generator

Yes, you read that correctly: word, not world.
This site asks you to input a list of English words, which it then splits and splices into familiar-sounding but completely new words. Useful for SF and fantasy stories.

• Random Word Generator

Language Creation

The links below contain tons of information on creating your own language. Be warned: Some of these are not for the faint of heart. Complexity abounds. You've got to want it, people!

Language creation How-tos

• Language Construction 101

• Language Creation Kit

Langmaker Generator

It's reputed to be diabolically hard to learn, but Langmaker remains a favorite among the linguistically inclined. If you're even thinking of creating your own language, you might be just the type who can stick with it long enough to learn it.

Here's the important stuff from the Langmaker site:

• Archived Model Languages Newsletter

• Preface

• Introduction

• A Naming Language

• Gymnastics with Onomastics

• Possibilities and Purposes

• Meaning Change

• Sen:espera

• Meaning

• Kinship Terms

• On Tolkien

• Emulating Tolkien

A download of the actual Langmaker program can be found here. Good luck!

Language examples and references

Sometimes all you need are some really good examples. The following pages contain tons of those. Enjoy!

• Constructed Language List

• Summer Institute of Linguistics

• Scripts of the Ancient World

• Unifon Alphabet

Measurement conversion

Here's a fun site for converting modern units of measurement into measurement units no longer in general use. Great for keeping that period piece sounding authentic.

• Online Unit Conversion