Language Name Generator: Name a Tongue for Your World: how it works
This language name generator names an invented language. It gives no words or names in one. One press joins an opening to a stem end, closes them with one of the seven endings English uses for real tongues, as in Danish, Maltese and Bengali, and adds who speaks it. Pressed cold it is a random language name generator; lock Ending and it names a family of tongues.
One ending, three sister tongues
Lock Ending on ese and press New language name three times: Glavolese, Orethonese, Kaizalese. Or lock Spoken by on the thieves' cant of the lower city and reroll until a name sounds sly enough. Print puts 20 on one sheet, enough for a continent.
Where the seven endings come from
The ending -ish is the Germanic one: Old English -isc, as in English itself. The ending -ese came through Old French from Latin -ensis, and -ian, -an and -ic go back to Latin too. The ending -i blends Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Hindustani endings and has made new English words since the 19th century. The ending -ite, Greek -ites by way of Latin and French, marks old tongues in the full ISO table: Hittite, Elamite. Of the 184 languages with a two-letter ISO code, 30 end in -ian and 12 each in -ish and -ese.
Tips
Give neighbors one ending. A coast where every tongue ends in -ese reads as one family, and a lone -ite reads as far older.
Say the name aloud with the word language after it. If you trip twice, reroll Stem end.
Drop the ending and the stem names the homeland: Glavolese is spoken in Glavol.
Questions and answers
How many language names can it make?
59 openings times 50 stem ends times 7 endings gives 20,650 names, and the 60 lines on who speaks it bring that to 1,239,000 results. A row works through all of its lines before one comes back, and the language name of the day matches on every screen.
Does it make words in the language?
No. This page names a language and stops there, with no vocabulary, no grammar and no names for its speakers. For nonsense words that follow English sound rules, use the gibberish generator. For a real language, try the random language generator.
Could a name already belong to someone?
It could. A script spells all 20,650 names and screens them against real languages (the ISO 639-3 table and Glottolog), real towns, a dictionary, 232 Wikipedia pages on fictional worlds and about 1.2 million fan wiki page titles. Two passes found 1,438 matches, Lothric and Ryloth among them, and 60 lines were cut. No list of fiction is complete, so search a name before you publish.
ishOld English -isc, a Germanic ending. On the ISO list: English, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Turkish.
From Latin 4
anLatin -anus by way of Old French -ain; after a final a, only n. On the ISO list: Korean, Tibetan, Samoan.
eseLatin -ensis by way of Old French -eis. On the ISO list: Japanese, Chinese, Maltese, Burmese.
ianLatin -ianus. On the ISO list: Italian, Russian, Hungarian, Armenian, Ukrainian, Persian.
icLatin -icus by way of Old French -ique, kin to Greek -ikos. On the ISO list: Arabic, Icelandic, Amharic.
Borrowed from farther off 2
iBlends Arabic and Hebrew endings with Persian and Hindustani -i. On the ISO list: Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi.
iteGreek -ites by way of Latin and French, an ending for peoples. On the ISO 639-3 list: Hittite, Elamite.
How this list was compiled: The seven endings that English really uses to name a language or a people, in lower case because each one closes the name. Each ending's origin was checked on 2026-09-19 against its English Wiktionary entry (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ish, -ese, -ian, -an, -ic, -i and -ite on the same pattern; every URL is in the item's x.src), and -ish also against https://www.etymonline.com/word/-ish. The notes are in our own words and leave out the accents the dictionaries print. The example languages are reference names that end in those letters in the ISO 639-3 code table from SIL International, the standard's registrar (https://iso639-3.sil.org/sites/iso639-3/files/downloads/iso-639-3.tab, checked 2026-09-19); every one except Hittite and Elamite also has a two-letter code on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639_language_codes, checked the same day. Of the 184 names with a two-letter code, 30 end in -ian, 12 in -ish, 12 in -ese and 7 in -ic. None ends in -ite. The full table has nine reference names that end in those letters. Seven carry the ending and are typed as historical: Elamite, Hittite, Old Hittite, Middle Hittite, Neo-Hittite, Moabite and Edomite. The other two, Kanite and Nde-Gbite, are typed as living languages, and their names only happen to end in those letters, so they are not used as examples. Wiktionary gives -ite for peoples and followers and does not list a language sense, so the page says only that the table uses it for old tongues. Examples were picked where the ending is plainly added to a place or people, so German, Catalan, Thai and Somali are not used. Left out because we could not verify them as language endings: -ean, -ac and -aic. Two groups of Latin descent and borrowed endings, plus the one Germanic ending. Licence: own work
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Spoken by: all 60 roles
Trade tongues 10
a bargaining tongue with nine words for a fair price
a caravan tongue, heavy on numbers and light on grammar
a dockside blend that no grammarian will admit to
the drovers' speech of the high passes
the language of contracts between the mountain clans
the market speech every toll keeper understands
the pidgin of three rival harbors
the sailors' common tongue from the reef to the ice
the tongue of the salt road, known at every well
the trade tongue of the river ports
Court and law 10
a courtly dialect with separate verbs for royalty
a legal tongue nobody speaks outside a courtroom
the clerks' language of ledgers, seals and census rolls
the crown's official language, by decree and little else
the diplomats' tongue, with four ways to say maybe
the language of heralds, titles and formal insults
the language of the high council and its long minutes
the language of the old court, spoken slowly on purpose
the speech of the ruling houses, taught by tutors
the tongue in which every treaty is written
Temple and rite 10
a language used only for vows, blessings and funerals
a ritual language with no word for hurry
a sacred tongue that is carved and never inked
the chant language of the hill shrines
the hymn tongue of the lantern festival
the language of the star-watchers' almanacs
the monastery tongue, kept alive by copyists
the oracles' speech, all riddles and no tenses
the scripture tongue only the ordained may read aloud
the temple tongue, sung more often than spoken
Hearth and home 10
the city's street speech, faster every generation
the everyday speech of the northern valleys
the farm tongue of the lowlands, rich in words for mud
the fishing fleet's home language, salted with old jokes
the forest villages' tongue, soft enough for hunting
the herders' tongue, made for shouting across a valley
the hill folk's language, with a whistle for yes
the island speech, a little different in every cove
the language of lullabies on the eastern shore
the mother tongue of the marsh villages
Guild and secret 10
a guild language guarded like a recipe
a miners' signal speech of taps and short words
a twins' language that grew into a village's
the actors' backstage slang, now a language of its own
the couriers' cipher tongue, dull to overhear on purpose
the scholars' private language for arguing in public
the secret speech of the bridge builders' lodge
the smugglers' code tongue, changed every winter
the spies' drill tongue, never written down
the thieves' cant of the lower city
Fading and lost 10
a dead language known from one broken monument
a fading tongue with forty speakers and one dictionary
a language remembered in one long song
a scholars' reconstruction nobody has heard spoken
a vanished tongue that left its alphabet behind
an ancestor tongue that survives only in place names
the grandmothers' language, coming back in the schools
the lost language of the drowned coast
the old empire's tongue, still stamped on coins
once the speech of kings, now of three mountain villages
How this list was compiled: An original list written for this page: 60 lines that say who speaks the language and what it is for. Rules for this row: each line is a phrase that follows the name and a comma, starts in lower case and takes no full stop, because the tool adds it. No line names a people, a place on a real map, a real language or a real faith, and none uses a name or term from a published game, novel, film or invented language. No line depends on the name's ending, so all 60 read well after any of the 20,650 names. The thieves, smugglers and spies are storybook ones: no real group and no real method. Six groups of 10: trade tongues, court and law, temple and rite, hearth and home, guild and secret, fading and lost. Licence: own work