namePlanet Name Generator
This planet name generator spins up new worlds, from desert moons to ringed gas giants. A desert world shouldn't sound like an ocean world. A gas giant shouldn't sound like a dead rock on the edge of charted space. This generator starts with the kind of planet you're naming and builds the sound from there — phoneme pools tuned to each world type, a setting-aware lore note, and a real-format catalog designation on every card.
👇 Click any name to copy it
Pick a planet type, choose whether you want an evocative name or a catalog designation, then set the setting that frames it. Every name lands ready for a star map, a campaign doc, or the first chapter of a story — and it carries implicit information about the world before you've written a word of description.
The right name does work. It tells the reader this is a place of sand and scarcity, or one drowned sea under three moons, before anyone reads the second line.
How to Use This Planet Name Generator
Four choices shape every batch. None of them are decoration — each one changes what lands on the card.
- Planet type is the primary control, and it drives the phonetics. Pick Desert / Arid and you get dry consonants and open vowels in the tradition of Arrakis and Tatooine. Pick Ocean / Water and the names flow like Kamino. Pick Gas giant and they ring with weight.
- Naming style sets the format. Evocative gives you proper nouns a culture would say out loud — Veridia, Khaarun. Catalog designation gives you survey records — XR-7 Tarsis, Kepler-22b — with a real astronomical id. Both mixes them, the way a real star chart mixes named and numbered worlds.
- Setting colours the lore note. Hard sci-fi gives you spectroscopy and orbital data. Space opera gives you faction history and contested claims. The name stays the same; the context shifts.
- Use the slider to pick how many names to roll, then hit Generate. Don't like a batch? Roll again as many times as you want — and click any card to copy it to your clipboard.
Each card also shows a real-format catalog designation — NGC, HD, Kepler, TESS and the rest — ready to drop straight into worldbuilding notes.
How Real and Fictional Planets Get Named
The naming traditions worth borrowing come from two places: the rules astronomers actually use, and the century of conventions science fiction has invented for itself. Both are baked into the pools above.
How Real Planets Are Named
The International Astronomical Union governs the official naming of planets, moons and other bodies, and the conventions change by body type.
- Solar system planets carry the names of Roman deities — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. The tradition runs back to antiquity for the visible worlds and was extended by convention as new ones turned up.
- Dwarf and minor planets pull from mythology more broadly — Pluto, Eris, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna — and the names must be mythological figures the IAU's small-body committee signs off on.
- Exoplanets get designation-style names: the host star's catalog id plus a lowercase letter for orbital order, like Kepler-452b, HD 209458b and TRAPPIST-1e. Informal common names come through occasional IAU naming contests, but the technical designation stays official.
- Moons follow theme-based rules per planet. Jupiter's moons take the names of his lovers and descendants; Saturn's take Titans and giants; Uranus's take characters from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.
How Fictional Planets Get Named
Science fiction built its own conventions over a hundred years of worldbuilding, and they break from the IAU rules in useful ways.
- Star Wars leans short, punchy and easy to say — Hoth, Naboo, Jakku, Crait — or melodic and multi-syllable, like Tatooine and Coruscant. Memorability comes first. Many names have roots: Coruscant from coruscate, to flash with light; Alderaan from Al Deran, old Arabic astronomy.
- Star Trek goes more technical and latinised — Vulcan, Romulus, Cardassia, Bajor, Qo'noS — fitting its grounded read on alien cultures as analogues of real ones. Klingon names in particular carry a harsh signature that signals aggression.
- Dune gives us Arrakis, a name that echoes the Arabic word for dance (raqs) filtered through a far future where Arabic culture has persisted and mutated. The choice is deliberate and political.
- The Culture takes another road entirely: worlds get named by the AIs that catalogue them, so the names run long, ironic or flatly descriptive — Prasadal, Pittance, Vavatch Orbital.
Planet Types and Their Naming Traditions
Type is the heaviest lever in the generator. Here's the reasoning behind each pool — use it as a quick reference when you're picking a type above.
| Planet type | Vibe | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Desert world | Dry consonants, open vowels, heat and scarcity | Khaarun |
| Ocean world | Liquid sounds, vowel-rich, movement and depth | Thalassa |
| Gas giant | Grand, deific roots scaled to the object | Joviter Major |
| Ice world | Crystalline clusters, stark and final | Cryon |
| Jungle world | Lush, layered, overgrown and loud | Itheloria |
| Volcanic world | Forge-heat, sulfur, hard guttural edges | Pyrathar |
| Barren world | Blunt, airless, cratered and dead | Cravus II |
| Terran world | Warm, habitable, almost too perfect | Veridia |
Desert Worlds
The desert planet is science fiction's most iconic biome — defined by Arrakis, reinforced by Tatooine and Jakku. The names favour open vowels and hard consonants that suggest heat, scarcity and ancient geology: Ar-, Dun-, Kha-, Sar-, Tar-. The tradition borrows from Arabic, Berber and other North African and Middle Eastern languages, a choice the genre keeps returning to. Conscious worldbuilding either engages with that tradition or deliberately subverts it.
Ocean Worlds
Water world names flow. They favour liquid consonants — L, M, N, R — and vowel-rich syllables that suggest movement and depth: Thalassa, Kamino, Aquaris. Many draw on Greek and Latin roots for water: thalass- (sea), aqua-, pelag- (open sea), nereid (sea nymph). The real solar system's ocean candidates — Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede, Titan — follow the mythological moon-naming theme.
Gas Giants
Gas giant names should feel grand. These are the largest objects in any system, and the name should carry matching weight. The classical tradition reaches for the most powerful deities — Jupiter, king of gods; Saturn, time and harvest; Uranus, sky; Neptune, sea. Fictional gas giants usually keep that logic, scaling the name to the scale of the world.
Ice Worlds
Ice planet names benefit from hard consonants in unusual positions — clusters that read as crystalline and precise: Cryo-, Gla-, Nim-, Rhy-, Sil-. The tradition includes Hoth, short and stark and final, and the real solar system's icy outer bodies: Pluto, Eris, Sedna, Makemake — names drawn from cold mythologies and distant cultures.
Jungle, Volcanic, Barren and Terran Worlds
The rest of the pools follow the same logic. Jungle worlds run lush and layered, their names long and overgrown. Volcanic worlds take forge-heat and sulfur — hard, guttural, built around the calderas. Barren worlds get blunt, final names that read like epitaphs: short, cold, describing an absence. Terran worlds lean warm and habitable, names a colony ship would be glad to reach — and four flags would fight to plant.
Example Planet Names
Pulled straight from the pools above, grouped by world type. Use them as-is, or roll the generator for a fresh batch.
Desert Worlds
- Khaarun
- Tarosk
- Sandrix
- Vorath
- Drakush Prime
- Kargen
- Saroon
- Dunash
- Malik
- Skorath
Ocean Worlds
- Thalassa
- Marella
- Nereion
- Aquaris
- Pelagine
- Kalonia
- Issira Deep
- Corael
- Velira
- Syrana
Ice & Frozen Worlds
- Cryon
- Glacius
- Rhyith
- Nimar Frost
- Silyx
- Borath
- Kelin
- Frigeth
- Hypax
- Nivar Zero
Gas Giants & Terran Worlds
- Joviter Major
- Kronos Prime
- Thoreus
- Aegonis
- Celeal
- Veridia
- Caelara
- Terradia Haven
- Elysia
- Auroria
Catalog Designations
- XR-7 Tarsis
- Kepler-4471c
- HD 209b Mira
- NS-22 Vorath
- TOI-3380b
- NGC-7741-d
- VG-19 Cryon
- Gliese 884c Pelin
- TESS-5512
- KX-3 Drakar
Evocative Names vs Catalog Designations
The naming style filter is the difference between a place people live and a place a survey ship just logged. Both have their use, and a good star map carries both.
Evocative names read like proper nouns — Veridia, Tharossa, Khaarun. They belong to worlds with a history, a population, a name passed down in some local tongue. Reach for them when the planet matters to the story: a homeworld, a capital, a battlefield people remember by name.
Catalog designations read like records — XR-7 Tarsis, Kepler-22b, HD 4471c. They fit hard sci-fi, frontier surveys and any world that's been charted but never settled. A designation tells the reader nobody's lived here long enough to give it a real name yet. That gap is itself a piece of worldbuilding.
| Setting | Best style | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Hard sci-fi | Catalog designation | Survey data, real astronomical ids, worlds logged before they're named |
| Space opera | Evocative | Homeworlds and capitals with deep history and contested claims |
| Frontier / exploration | Both | A mix of named worlds and fresh designations, like a working chart |
| Military sci-fi | Catalog designation | Sector codes and grid markers read as operational, not poetic |
About Naming Planets
A planet name is the first piece of worldbuilding anyone meets for a location, and it sets every expectation that follows. Before you describe the storms, the cities or the war over the orbital lanes, the reader has already read the name — and decided, half consciously, what kind of place this is. That's why the choice carries weight out of proportion to its length.
The strongest sci-fi planet names do phonetic work that matches the world. Arrakis sounds like sand grinding on sand. Hoth sounds like a door closing on the cold. Coruscant shimmers. None of that is accident — it's sound engineered to carry meaning. The pools in this generator are tuned the same way, so the name arrives already pointing at the world behind it.
Whether you're charting a frontier for a hard-science novel or naming the throneworld of a fallen empire, start with the type, pick the style that fits the role, and let the setting frame the rest. A good planet name is a promise about the place — keep that promise and the world feels real before you've described a single horizon.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a good planet name for a sci-fi story?
A good planet name is pronounceable, memorable, and does phonetic work that fits the world. Desert planets should sound arid, ocean worlds should flow, gas giants should feel grand. The name is the first piece of worldbuilding a reader meets for that location, so it should carry a hint of what kind of place this is before any description starts.
What is the difference between an evocative name and a catalog designation?
An evocative name reads like a proper noun a culture would actually use — Veridia, Tharossa, Khaarun. A catalog designation reads like a survey record: a real-format astronomical identifier such as Kepler-22b or HD 4471c, sometimes paired with a short field code like XR-7. Pick evocative for places people live, catalog for newly charted worlds and hard-science settings.
How do real exoplanets get their names?
Most exoplanets carry only a catalog designation: the host star's identifier plus a lowercase letter for orbital order — b for the first found, c for the second, and so on. Kepler-452b, HD 209458b and TRAPPIST-1e all follow that rule. The IAU runs occasional naming contests for approved common names, but the technical designation stays official.
How does the planet type filter change the name?
Type drives the phonetics. Each world type draws from its own pool of syllables — desert worlds get dry consonants and open vowels, ocean worlds get liquid sounds and vowel-rich endings, ice worlds get crystalline clusters, gas giants get weighty deific roots. Switch the type and the whole sound of the batch shifts.
What does the setting filter do?
Setting colours the lore note under each name, not the name itself. Hard sci-fi gives you spectroscopy, orbital periods and gravity readings. Space opera gives you faction history, lost civilisations and contested claims. The same world reads as a survey target or a war prize depending on which you pick.
Can I use these names in my novel, game, or campaign?
Yes. Every name is assembled algorithmically and free to use for any creative project. The pools are tuned to evoke familiar sci-fi traditions without copying trademarked planets or settings, so the output is original and safe for published work.
