OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Fantasy Shop Name Generator
Smithies, Apothecaries, Magic Shops and Bookshops for Fantasy Towns
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How the Fantasy Shop Name Generator works
This fantasy shop name generator makes fantasy shop names for the businesses on a town's main street: the blacksmith's forge, the apothecary, the magic and curiosity shop, the bookshop, the general store and the tailor. Results come as sign-style names, proprietor's names and the formal "Marek Hexley, Purveyor of Oddities" kind.
How the fantasy shop name generator works
A fantasy town is only as real as its shops, and a game master who has a name ready for the smithy when the party asks saves a session from stalling. This page produces shop names in the three forms that real pre-modern businesses used: the sign, the owner's name and the owner's name with a trade description.
The trade select picks the vocabulary. Blacksmith gives forges, anvils and farriers, with the twin-surname partnership form (Ironhand & Cooper, Smiths). Apothecary gives herbs, mortars and tinctures, and the herbalist form. Magic shop gives the emporium of curiosities that every fantasy city seems to have, with a "Purveyor of" line and a stock description such as Relics of Doubtful Provenance. Bookshop gives quills, tomes and scriveners. General store gives provisioners and sundries. Tailor gives needles, thimbles and outfitters. Any mixes them for a whole street at a time.
Every shop has a proprietor behind it, and the surnames used here are the same original list across all six trades, so a batch of shops feels like one town whose families have been in business for generations; a Fletcher in the bookshop and a Fletcher & Kemp at the forge is the kind of detail that makes a place feel lived in. The first names and surnames are original, and the sign vocabulary is ordinary trade vocabulary, so nothing here belongs to a published setting.
If you need the tavern next door, the tavern page uses the same sign formula; if you need the guild the shopkeepers belong to, the guild page names it. For a shop that sells something the lists do not cover, generate in Any and change the trade word: The Crooked Bobbin works as well for a cobbler as for a tailor. The point of the page is to hand you a name in the second it takes a player to ask, so keep a batch of ten ready before a session in a new town.
FAQ
Why do some results include a person's full name?
Because a shop in a pre-modern town was usually called by its owner's name and trade, on the sign and in conversation, and that form gives you a shopkeeper NPC at the same time as the shop. The other patterns give the sign name alone.
What does "Purveyor of Oddities" mean?
Purveyor is the old formal word for a supplier, and the phrase is the shape of an eighteenth-century tradesman's card. It makes the magic shop sound respectable, which is more fun than making it sound magical; every player already knows the shop is strange.
Can I generate a whole street?
Yes. Set the trade to Any and the count to ten or twenty, and the results will mix the six trades. Because the surnames are shared, two shops will sometimes carry the same family name, which you can keep as a rivalry or a dynasty.
Are the shop names copied from a game?
No. The trade vocabulary is ordinary English, the surnames are original, and the combinations are random. A result may coincide with a shop in a published adventure by chance, which is unavoidable with a formula this common and harmless for a name on a map.
How do I name a shop for a trade not in the list?
Generate a batch in the nearest trade and swap the noun. The sign formula is an adjective and a thing, so a cooper is The Bent Barrel, a chandler is The Steady Candle and a cobbler is The Crooked Last. The proprietor patterns work for any trade by changing the trade word.
See also: all Fantasy & RPG tools, People, Sci-fi, Culture & Language, Online & Social, Business & Brand, Places & Things.
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