This Japanese town name generator joins two real Japanese words, a thing and a landform, and adds a word for the size of the place. Himawari is sunflower and yama is mountain, so Himawariyama-machi is Sunflower Mountain town.
Read the full guide
Press, then lock a part
Press New town name. The name has three parts: a first word, a landform and a size. Tap one to lock it and press again. Lock the second part on saki, a cape, and every town stands on a headland: Sumiresaki is Violet Cape.
A Japanese village name generator in one tap
The Size row holds the words Japan puts after a place name: mura or son for a village, machi or cho for a town, shi for a city. Lock it on mura and every press names a village. The list under the tool gives the kanji and meaning of every part.
Tips
Real names often voice the second part, so kawa becomes gawa. The parts here keep their plain reading.
The result is in Latin letters. Copy the kanji of each part from the list under the tool.
Questions and answers
What do Japanese town names mean?
Many join a plain word to a landform: yama is a mountain, kawa a river, saki a cape, shima an island and hara a field. The list under the tool gives the kanji and meaning of every part used here.
What is the difference between shi, machi and mura?
They are kinds of municipality. A shi (市) is a city, a machi or cho (町) is a town and a mura or son (村) is a village. The Size row puts one after each name.
Are these real Japanese towns?
No. Every join was checked against the GeoNames table of places in Japan, in Latin letters and in kanji, and real ones were cut. Common pairs such as Nagasaki and Takayama are real, so the first parts here are rarer words.
How this list was compiled: Our own choice of 45 Japanese words, each in Latin letters with its kanji and meaning. The kanji, the reading and the meaning of every word were checked by script on 2026-10-02 against JMdict, the Japanese-English dictionary file of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (https://www.edrdg.org/jmdict/j_jmdict.html, CC BY-SA 4.0). Everyday first parts such as Naga, Taka and Matsu are left out on purpose: joined to these second parts they spell real places. Every name the First part and Second part rows can spell was checked that day against the GeoNames table of Japan, 103,761 places with their alternate names (https://download.geonames.org/export/dump/, CC BY 4.0), in Latin letters, with the second part voiced as well (kawa and gawa), and in kanji; against every list on this site; and as an exact page title on English Wikipedia. The part behind a match was cut. 35 candidates were cut (26 a real place on the map; 2 on another list of this site; 4 a rude word inside or across the join; 1 a name from published fiction, or one letter from it; 1 a Wikipedia page title; 1 whose meaning, beside one of the second parts, read as the English name of a real place), among them Mari, Ichigo, Beni, Ruri, Sango, Biwa, Tsubaki, Uguisu, Mukashi, Hotaruishi. Nobody who reads Japanese as a first language has read this list. Licence: own selection; words, readings and meanings from JMdict (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Second part: all 34 second parts
F 1
fuchi淵, deep pool
H 4
hama浜, beach
hara原, field
hata畑, field
hayashi林, woods
I 3
ike池, pond
iso磯, rocky beach
izumi泉, spring
Show all 34 second parts (26 more)
K 6
kata潟, lagoon
kawa川, river
kishi岸, shore
kubo窪, hollow
kuchi口, mouth
kura倉, storehouse
M 3
minato港, harbor
misaki岬, cape
mori森, forest
N 3
nada灘, open sea
no野, plain
numa沼, swamp
O 1
oka岡, hill
S 7
saka坂, slope
saki崎, cape
sato里, village
sawa沢, mountain stream
shima島, island
shiro城, castle
sono園, garden
T 4
taki滝, waterfall
tsuji辻, crossroads
tsuka塚, mound
tsutsumi堤, embankment
U 1
ura浦, inlet
Y 1
yama山, mountain
How this list was compiled: 34 second parts found in real Japanese place names, each with its kanji and meaning, checked by script on 2026-10-02 against JMdict (https://www.edrdg.org/jmdict/j_jmdict.html, CC BY-SA 4.0). The screen is described in the First part row's source. 4 candidates were cut (4 a real place on the map), among them hashi, ta, tani, mine. Licence: own selection; words, readings and meanings from JMdict (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Size: all 5 sizes
C 1
cho町, a town: the same character in its other reading, chō.
M 2
machi町, a town.
mura村, a village.
S 2
shi市, a city.
son村, a village: the same character in its other reading.
How this list was compiled
The 5 words Japan uses after the name of a municipality: cities (市, shi), towns (町, chō or machi) and villages (村, mura or son), as given in the English Wikipedia article Municipalities of Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipalities_of_Japan, CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-10-02, with each reading checked against JMdict. Licence: own wording; facts from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and JMdict (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Beside: all 30 features
A 19
a bamboo grove
a cedar forest
a covered shopping street
a footbridge slung across a ravine
a highway of the old post stations
a hot spring
a lotus pond
a marsh where cranes spend the winter
Show all 30 features (22 more)
A, continued
a quiet bay of oyster rafts
a railway line with a single track
a reservoir in the hills
a river full of sweetfish
a rocky cape with a lighthouse
a round lake in an old crater
a sea wall and a row of drying nets
a shore of dark volcanic sand
a small fishing harbor
a volcano that still steams
a wide gravel riverbed
B 1
buckwheat fields
C 1
cherry trees along a riverbank
M 1
mandarin orange groves
P 2
persimmon orchards
the pier of a small ferry
R 3
rice paddies that flood in June
rows of tea bushes
the ruin of a castle
S 1
switchbacks up to a high pass
T 1
terraced rice fields
W 1
wasabi beds in a cold stream
How this list was compiled: Our own list of 30 features, written on 2026-10-02 to read after the word "beside". No line names a real place. Checked by script against every list on this site for repeats. Nothing was cut. Licence: own work