OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Island Name Generator
Fictional Island, Archipelago and Tropical Isle Names for Maps
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How the Island Name Generator works
This island name generator makes fantasy, tropical and fictional island names in the shapes real islands take: Isle of Harrow and Great Fenholm, Gull Rock and Cormorant Key from an animal or a feature, Saint Ambrose Island and Whitfield Cay from a saint or an explorer, Tavaloa and Isla Verdana as coined names, and the Marrow Isles or the Seven Sisters as a chain. Pick a sea, choose a style and generate up to a hundred.
How the island name generator works
An island is named by whoever reached it first and stayed, or by whoever sailed past and needed to log it, and the two kinds of name read differently on a map, which is why the Sea select matters more here than on the other geography pages: a Northern island takes holm, ay, ey and skerry from the Norse, a tropical one takes motu, nui and loa, a Mediterranean one takes Isola and a soft Italianate ending, and a Caribbean one takes Key, Cay and a Spanish or French saint. The Isle-of form, Isle of Harrow, Great Fenholm, Isle of Whitfield, Wendholm Isle, is the British and Northern shape, an island that has been settled long enough to have a name that stands alone with Isle in front of it, and Great, Little, Inner and Outer are what happens when there are two. The animal-or-feature form, Gull Rock, Cormorant Key, Seal Skerry, Lighthouse Island, Windward Cay, is the sailor's shape, an island named for what was seen from the deck, and it is the most common island name in the world because most islands are small, uninhabited and named from a boat; Rock, Skerry, Stack and Key say the island is small, and Island and Isle say it is bigger. The saint-or-explorer form, Saint Ambrose Island, Whitfield Cay, Saint Helenas, Isla Santa Lucia, is the colonial shape, an island named on the day it was sighted for the saint of that day or the captain who sighted it, and it is the shape of the Caribbean and the Atlantic. The coined form, Tavaloa, Isla Verdana, Skarnsey, Corendossa, is the shape of the island that had a name before the sailors came, and the four seas give four sound palettes so a Pacific atoll and a Norse skerry are told apart by their vowels. And the chain form, the Marrow Isles, the Seven Sisters, the Hartley Islands, Kestholm Archipelago, names the group rather than the island, and it is the shape a map needs before it can name the parts.
The animals, features, saints, surnames and syllables are ordinary and the shapes shared, so a result is a new combination rather than a real island by design, but small-island names are so repetitive that Gull Rock, Seal Island and Saint Helena exist many times over, and a coined tropical name may match a real atoll or a village, so search a map before you use one for anything but fiction. An island name also has to say its size and its sea, so the shapes here carry a generic that does both, and a name of one or two words before the generic reads better on a chart than a long one.
For the sea's mainland, the Country page; for the port on the island, the Town and village page and the City page; for the peak in the middle, the Mountain, river and lake page; for the boat that reaches it, the Boat and yacht page; and for a fantasy or sci-fi island world, the Fantasy and Sci-fi sections.
FAQ
What is the difference between an island, an isle, a key, a cay and a skerry?
Island is the plain word; isle is the same word in an older or grander register; key and cay are the same Spanish word for a low sandy island on a reef, used in the Caribbean and Florida; a skerry is a Norse rock too small to live on; a holm is a Norse islet in a river or a bay; an atoll is a ring of coral round a lagoon.
How do I name a tropical island so it sounds real?
Use the coined style with the Tropical sea, which builds from Polynesian-style open syllables, or the animal-or-feature style with Atoll, Motu and Cay, and give the island a saint or an explorer name as well, since most real tropical islands carry both a native and a colonial name. Keep it to three or four syllables.
Why do so many islands have saint names?
Because sailors named an island for the saint whose feast fell on the day it was sighted, so the calendar is written across the Atlantic and the Caribbean, and because a saint's name was a claim of possession for a Catholic crown. The generator uses saints that are common as place names so the result reads as a sighting, not as a real island.
Will a generated island name match a real one?
The small-island shapes will, since Gull Rock, Seal Island and Saint Anne exist many times over; the coined and chain styles produce the rarest results. Search a map and a chart before you use a result outside fiction, and pair the island with an invented sea or country if it must be clearly fictional.
Can I use these names for fiction or test data?
Yes. The names are combinations of common animals, features, saints, surnames and invented syllables and belong to no one, though a small-island result may match a real island by coincidence, so search a map if that matters. For an island in a story, a game map or a demo atlas, use them freely.
See also: all Places & Things tools, People, Fantasy & RPG, Sci-fi, Culture & Language, Online & Social, Business & Brand.
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