Weapon Name Generator

One sword at each tier

Generated by this tool when the page was built. Notice how the naming changes as the sword gets better.

• Common Tempered Bone Blade Described rather than named: what it is made of and how well.
• Rare Thorned Rapier of Spring A described weapon with an affix, the way loot is labelled in games.
• Epic Wolfsong A proper name of its own, built from what it does. Forged by the last elven forge in the forge beneath the mountain.
• Legendary Rjastein, Doom of Dragons A name, a title and a story — the kind of weapon songs are written about. They say it was broken once and reforged stronger.

Weapons are named on a sliding scale

In legend and in games alike, how a weapon is named tells you how much it matters. Nobody names the sword a guard carries; it is a steel sword, maybe a good one. A better weapon is described with a flourish — a frostbitten axe "of the North Wind". A great weapon has a name of its own, and a truly legendary one has a name, a title and a story people tell about it.

The rarity setting follows that scale. Choose All four tiers to see the whole ladder at once, three of each, or pick a single tier to fill a list with weapons of the same standing.

The four tiers

Common: described, not named

A quality, a material and a form: Tempered Steel Longsword, Weathered Yew Shortbow. This is how a merchant would list it, and how most of the weapons in any world should be described. Bows and staffs are made of woods here — yew, ash, elm — rather than metals, because nobody makes a bow out of iron.

Rare: the affix

A described weapon with an elemental adjective in front and an "of the…" phrase after it: Glacial Battleaxe of the Frozen Throne. This is the convention loot-based games made familiar, where a prefix and a suffix each tell you something about the item's power. The tool checks that the two halves never repeat a word, so you will not see a Hollow Hammer of the Hollow Moon.

Epic: a name of its own

At this tier a weapon gets a proper name, usually a compound that says what it does or what it is the enemy of: Wyrmbane, Stormsong, Thornwhisper. Some are names in an invented language instead, which suits a weapon with a long history. Every epic weapon comes with a line of lore.

Legendary: name, title and story

A name followed by a title — Arandil, Breaker of Oaths; Kingfang, the Last Word — and a line of history: who forged it, where, what it is said to do. These are the weapons that turn up in songs, get lost for three hundred years and choose their wielders.

Bane, brand and song: the old ways of naming a blade

The compound names draw on some of the oldest naming habits in English and Norse storytelling. Bane is an Old English word for something that brings death or ruin, so a weapon called Wyrmbane is literally the ruin of dragons. Brand was a poetic word for a sword, probably from the flash of the blade. Old English and Norse poetry also used kennings, compressed metaphors instead of plain nouns — Beowulf calls a sword a "battle-light" — and names like Stormsong and Thornwhisper are built in the same spirit.

The endings depend on the weapon. Swords take -bane, -brand, -edge and -song. Axes take -cleaver, -splitter and -bite. Bows take -song, -flight and -whisper, because a bow is quiet until it is not. Staffs take -caller, -weaver and -ward, because a staff is a tool for magic as much as for hitting. Hammers take -breaker, -quake and -fall.

Epic names for every weapon type

• Sword Dragonbreaker · Malne · Demonfang
• Axe Droghush · Mauzgoug · Rokfet
• Bow Vaelia · Eclipsestrike · Niaplia
• Staff Glacierspeaker · Cindercaller · Veilcaller
• Dagger Sozmauv · Maegbaun · Wolfkiss
• Hammer Tradis · Dyztoina · Skybreaker
• Spear Giantpiercer · Dragonpiercer · Eclipsepoint
• Scythe Demonreaper · Oathend · Szaxvu

Six elements

The element shapes the adjectives, the nouns in compound names, the affixes on rare items and the lore lines. Fire weapons never cool and leave scorch marks; frost weapons rime the air on a summer day; storm weapons hum before the weather turns; shadow weapons cast no reflection; holy weapons cannot be lifted by a liar; nature weapons put out new leaves every spring.

Leave it on Any and each weapon draws its own element, which gives a more varied armoury. Pick one when you are stocking a single dungeon or a single faction's armoury and want everything in it to belong together.

Names in invented languages

Some epic and legendary weapons get a name in an invented tongue rather than English. These come from the same sound systems as the Fantasy Name Generator, matched to the weapon: axes and hammers draw on dwarven and Norse sounds, with their hard consonants and closed syllables; bows on the flowing sounds of the elves; daggers and scythes on darker, more sibilant tongues.

A weapon's name gets said aloud far more than a character's — by players, by narrators, by whoever reads your book — so these names are filtered more strictly than the culture's own names: no tangles of three consonants, no endings no English speaker could say, and a minimum score on the same pronounceability test the Name Combiner uses.

Writing your own lore

The lore line is a starting point. The best weapon histories answer one of three questions, and the generator rotates between them:

• Who made it, and where? "Forged by a smith who never spoke again, in the deepest mine in the north." The maker and the place carry the story.
• What does it do that a normal weapon does not? "It hums before a storm arrives." One small, specific strangeness is more memorable than a list of powers.
• What happened to it? "It was lost for three hundred years." A weapon with a past makes the person carrying it more interesting.

Take the line, keep the part you like, and tie it to your world: name the smith, name the war, name the king who could not wield it. That is usually where a quest comes from.

Using it at the table

For a game master, the mixed setting is a ready-made loot table: three common, three rare, three epic, three legendary, in that order. Save the ones you want with the Save button and they collect in a shortlist, kept in this browser between sessions. Copy with lore takes the whole entry for an item card.

For writers, generate a dozen legendary weapons and read the lore lines together. Two or three will suggest a story on their own, and a weapon that already has history is far easier to write about than one you invented this morning.

Named weapons in real legend

Naming weapons is far older than fantasy fiction. Medieval and ancient stories are full of them, and they show the same patterns the generator uses:

• Excalibur, Arthur's sword, has a name whose origins scholars still argue about — probably from a Welsh name, Caledfwlch, and possibly linked to the Latin for steel.
• Durendal, the sword of Roland in the Song of Roland, was said to hold holy relics in its hilt — lore of exactly the "what makes it special" kind.
• Joyeuse, Charlemagne's sword, is named for a quality: joyful.
• Gram, the sword of Sigurd in Norse legend, was broken and reforged before he killed the dragon Fáfnir — the broken-and-reforged history that still turns up in fantasy today.
• Kusanagi, the grass-cutting sword of Japanese myth, is named for a deed: cutting the grass around its wielder to escape a fire.

A maker, a quality, a deed, a broken history. Very little about naming legendary weapons has changed in a thousand years, which is why names built on those patterns feel right instantly.

Naming a weapon after its owner

Another old habit: the weapon takes the owner's name, or the owner takes the weapon's. If a character in your story is known for their sword, consider letting the sword's name become part of how people refer to them — the one who carries Stormsong. And if the sword outlives them, its next wielder inherits the reputation along with the blade, which is a story in itself.

Steer clear of famous names

Some weapon names are so well known that using them makes your weapon someone else's. Excalibur and Mjölnir belong to myth and are free to use, but everyone will think of the original. Names from modern fiction — the swords and hammers of well-known novels, films and games — are part of those works, and using them as your own reads as borrowing at best. Every name this tool produces is generated fresh, which is the safest way to get something that is yours.

Related tools

Put the weapon in the hands of a character from the Fantasy Name Generator, or a whole company from the Guild Name Generator. The Dwarf Name Generator names the smiths, and the Dragon Name Generator names the thing all those -bane swords were made for.

Common questions

How do I name a fantasy weapon?

Decide how important it is first. An ordinary weapon is described rather than named. A good one gets an affix — “of the North Wind”. A great one gets a name of its own, usually from what it does or what it killed, and a legendary one gets a title and a story as well. The rarity setting in the tool follows exactly that scale.

What does “-bane” mean in a weapon name?

Bane is an old English word for something that causes death or ruin, so Wyrmbane means the ruin of dragons. It is one of the oldest ways to name a weapon: after the enemy it was made to destroy, or the one it famously did.

Why do some names sound dwarvish or elvish?

Because they are built from the same sound systems as the Fantasy Name Generator, matched to the weapon. Axes and hammers draw on dwarven and Norse sounds, bows on elven ones, and daggers and scythes on darker tongues.

Can I use these in D&D or my own game?

Yes. Every result is generated fresh and none is taken from an existing game. Copy with lore gives you the name, the type and a line of history in one go, ready for a loot table or a character sheet.

What do the rarity tiers mean?

They follow the convention most role-playing and loot-based games use: common, rare, epic and legendary, each more powerful and more storied than the last. In the tool they also decide how the weapon is named, from a plain description up to a name with a title.

Is anything stored?

No. Weapons are generated in your browser and nothing is uploaded. Your shortlist stays in this browser.