Generate planet and world names from a phonology built for science fiction — hard onsets, unusual letters and classical endings — plus designations in the Outer, Far and Frozen register. Nothing here is taken from any existing setting.
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Two traditions, and they sound nothing alike
Science fiction names worlds in two quite different ways, and mixing them carelessly is what makes a setting feel assembled rather than built.
The coined name is a word from a language you have not been shown — hard onsets, unusual letters, classical endings. It implies that somebody already lived there and named it themselves.
The designation is descriptive and administrative: Outer Reach, Frozen Basin, the Silent Rift. It implies a surveyor, a catalogue and somebody arriving from elsewhere.
Both are in this tool. Which you use says something about who did the naming, which is worth deciding rather than alternating by accident.
The phonology, and why it sounds like science fiction
The coined names here are built from an inventory chosen for the genre: k, t, v, z, x and q at the front, classical endings like -is, -os, -ar and -ion at the back.
Those endings are doing most of the work, because they carry an association with Latin and Greek that reads as scientific and old at the same time. The unusual onsets supply the strangeness. Take either away and the names stop sounding like worlds.
How much strangeness a name can carry
A planet name is repeated constantly in a story with a setting, and every awkward one is friction the reader pays for on every page.
Two or three syllables is the workable range. If a name has more than one unusual letter, read a paragraph containing it before committing — two x’s or a q and a z together look striking in isolation and become unreadable in prose.
Save the genuinely strange names for places mentioned once, where the strangeness is doing the work and the reader is not asked to carry it repeatedly.
Naming a system rather than a world
Most stories need more than one name at a time: a system, a world, a moon, a settlement, a region.
The convention that reads as real is a name for the system and numbered or lettered bodies within it, with only the inhabited ones acquiring proper names. That is how astronomers actually do it, and it gives you a free signal about which places matter — a world with a name is a world where something happened.
The fictional city tool handles settlements on the surface, which should sound different from the planet itself.
Designations that imply somebody wrote them down
The descriptive style produces names in the register of a survey: Outer, Far, Cold, Twin, Drowned, Hollow. These work because they sound like somebody’s job.
The trap is making them poetic. A designation that is trying to be evocative stops sounding like a catalogue entry and starts sounding like a title, which undermines the whole reason for using the form. Plainer is better, and plainest is frequently best.
Names that carry an assumption
Readers infer a great deal from a planet name before you tell them anything. A harsh coined name implies a hostile place; a soft one implies somewhere habitable; a numbered designation implies somewhere nobody cared about.
Using that deliberately saves description. Contradicting it deliberately is a cheap and effective surprise. Doing it accidentally means the reader carries a wrong impression for several chapters and blames the writing when it is corrected.
Reading the score
A score out of 100 sits on each result, weighing sound, spelling, structure and length, and “Why this score” opens the reasoning.
Pronounceability is the criterion that matters and the floor for this vocabulary is deliberately low, because science fiction names are allowed to be strange. Watch it anyway: a name a reader cannot resolve becomes a blank on the page rather than a place.
Who is doing the naming
The most useful question when naming a world is not what it should be called but who called it that, because the answer decides everything else.
A world named by the people who live on it will have a name in their language, which the coined style produces. A world named by an arriving survey will have a designation. A world named by a colonial administration will frequently have both, with the official name on the charts and the older one still in local use — which is a small, cheap source of tension you can put on the page.
Settings that decide this once and hold to it read as coherent. Settings that alternate without a reason read as though the names were generated, which they were, but that should not be visible.
Moons, stations and the layer below
Almost nothing in a science fiction setting is a single object. A world has moons, orbital stations, surface settlements and often a system name above all of them.
The convention that reads as real keeps those in different registers: a coined name for the world, numbers or letters for the moons, a naval-style name for anything crewed, and place morphology for anything on the ground. The spaceship tool covers the third of those and the fictional city tool the fourth.
Giving every layer the same kind of name is what makes a setting feel flat, because nothing in it sounds like a different kind of thing.
What is not checked
This tool consults no catalogue of any kind, and a result carries no indication of whether the name has been used before.
Two things are worth searching if you intend to publish. Real astronomical objects have names, and using one for an invented world creates a small confusion for readers who know it. And this genre has a number of extremely famous invented worlds, an accidental echo of which invites a comparison you did not choose.
How to use the Planet Name Generator
- Choose invented for a coined name, or two words for a survey-style designation.
- Decide which tradition your setting uses rather than alternating by accident.
- Keep coined names to two or three syllables if the place recurs.
- Press Generate planet names and run several rounds.
- Read a paragraph containing any name with two unusual letters before committing.
- Use the fictional city tool for settlements on the surface.
Frequently asked questions
What are the two ways science fiction names worlds?
A coined name is a word from a language you have not been shown — hard onsets, unusual letters, classical endings — implying somebody already lived there and named it themselves. A designation is descriptive and administrative, like Outer Reach or Frozen Basin, implying a surveyor and somebody arriving from elsewhere. Which you use says who did the naming.
Why do the coined names sound like science fiction?
The endings do most of the work. Classical suffixes like -is, -os, -ar and -ion carry an association with Latin and Greek that reads as scientific and old at the same time, while unusual onsets like k, v, x, z and q supply the strangeness. Take either away and the names stop sounding like worlds.
How strange can a planet name be?
Less than you would like, if the place recurs. A planet name is repeated constantly in a story with a setting, and every awkward one is friction the reader pays on every page. Two or three syllables is workable, and if a name has more than one unusual letter, read a paragraph containing it — two x's together look striking alone and become unreadable in prose.
Should I name every world in the system?
The convention that reads as real is a name for the system with numbered or lettered bodies inside it, and only the inhabited ones acquiring proper names. That is how astronomers actually do it, and it gives a free signal about which places matter: a world with a name is a world where something happened.
What makes a designation convincing?
Plainness. Outer, Far, Cold, Twin, Drowned and Hollow work because they sound like somebody's job. The trap is making them poetic — a designation trying to be evocative stops sounding like a catalogue entry and starts sounding like a title, which undermines the whole reason for using the form.
Do readers infer things from the name?
A great deal, before you tell them anything. A harsh coined name implies a hostile place, a soft one implies somewhere habitable, a numbered designation implies somewhere nobody cared about. Using that deliberately saves description; contradicting it deliberately is an effective surprise; doing it accidentally means the reader carries a wrong impression for chapters.
Do you check the name against real astronomy or existing fiction?
No. Nothing is consulted anywhere in this tool. Two things are worth searching if you publish: real astronomical objects have names, and using one for an invented world confuses readers who know it; and this genre has several extremely famous invented worlds, an accidental echo of which invites a comparison you did not choose.
