Galaxy Name Generator

How the Galaxy Name Generator works

Galaxy name generator: how the names are built

A galaxy is the biggest thing a story names, and the generator gives four ways to do it. The classical name is the astronomer's, an adjective coined from a classical root with Galaxy after it in the manner of the real named galaxies, the Seraphine Galaxy, the Andrastine Galaxy, the Halcyon Galaxy, the Aurelian Galaxy, the Hyperian Galaxy, the Thulian Galaxy, or the bare name, Seraphine, Vesperine, Alkerath, or the name with the galaxy's shape, the Halcyon Spiral, the Lyranic Wheel, the Cassiane Cloud, the Sidonian Ring. The descriptive name is the one people use who live in it or look at it, an adjective and a shape, the Great Wheel, the Cinder Spiral, the Far Whorl, the Pale Veil, the Twin Spindle, the Broken Crown, or a single noun for the galaxy as a thing, the Veil, the Lantern, the Hearth, the Sea, the Furnace, the Cradle, the Wound, since the people inside a galaxy call it the galaxy and need a name only when there is another one to tell it from. The catalogue number is the survey's, a prefix and a number in the manner of the real deep-sky catalogues, NGC-4471, IC-812, Galaxy UGC 3390, PGC-19033, MCG-7042 A, ESO-55127, which is how a galaxy is known before anyone has been there. The galactic region names a part rather than the whole, since most space opera happens in one galaxy and needs names for its arms, rims and cores, the Outer Rim, the Halcyon Arm, the Cold Verge, the Dark Core, the Cinder Spur, the Far Marches, the Silent Frontier, the Lost Expanse, the Rim Worlds, the Core Worlds, the Frontier Worlds, or the region placed in a named galaxy, the Outer Reach of the Tarsine Galaxy, the Ashen Fringe of the Seraphine Galaxy.

Classical name gives the astronomer's. Descriptive name gives the inhabitant's. Catalogue number gives the survey's. Galactic region gives the arm, rim or core.

There is no gender option, since a galaxy has none.

The lists are original. The classical names are coined from classical roots and are not the names of any real or published galaxy, the shapes and descriptors are built for this page, the catalogue prefixes are the real ones with random numbers, and the region words are the ordinary astronomical ones; a match with a novel, a series or a game would be chance, and a name intended for commercial use should be searched first.

For the systems inside the galaxy, the star system page; for a nebula in one of its arms, the nebula name page; for the empire that rules a region, the space empire page; for the worlds themselves, the planet name page; and for the star at the centre of a story, the star name page.

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