This river name generator names running water for a map or a story: a name, a real word for a stream such as beck, burn or bourne, and where the river ends. Every word is explained under the tool.
Read the full guide
Name one river or a whole valley
Press New river name. Tap a part to lock it, then press again. Lock the kind on Beck and every press names another stream of one northern valley. Lock where it ends and press for all the streams that feed one lake.
What the words mean
A beck is a stream or small river in northern England. A burn is a large stream in Scotland and northern England. A bourne flows only for part of the year, and a wadi stays dry except in the rainy season.
Tips
For fantasy river names, pick the word your map's people would use: Burn in the hills, Bayou in the lowlands.
Change only the name to hear one stream under several names.
Questions and answers
What is another word for a river or stream?
English has many. Brook, creek, beck, burn, run, rill, bourne, bayou, rivulet and runnel are all in the list under the tool, each with its dictionary meaning and where it is used.
What is the difference between a creek and a brook?
Both are smaller than a river. A brook is a body of running water smaller than a river. Creek means the same in North America and Australia, but in Britain a creek is a small inlet of the sea.
What is a kill in a river name?
A kill is a creek or stream. The word is archaic or regional and survives mostly in place names. It is not among the words this tool deals.
How do you name a river on a made-up map?
Choose what people first noticed about it: the color of the water, the sound it makes, how fast it runs, or something that once happened on its bank. Then add the local word for a stream.
Are these real rivers?
The names are made up. Each name with each word for a stream was searched as a Wikipedia page title, and the hits were cut. Plain stream names repeat by the thousand on real maps, so search a name before you publish it.
How this list was compiled: Our own list of 72 names for a river, written on 2026-10-02. Every name was joined to every word in the Kind row by script and screened that day: exact page titles on English Wikipedia, exact page titles on 4 fantasy fan wikis (forgottenrealms.fandom.com, elderscrolls.fandom.com, wowpedia.fandom.com, pathfinder.fandom.com), every page title of 16 more, and every list on this site. The name behind a hit was cut, and so was every name with an apostrophe, after four of them proved to be real streams once the apostrophe or the possessive s is dropped. 25 candidates were cut (16 a Wikipedia page title, four of them without the apostrophe or its s and one with the words turned round; 7 taken out on a second reading, five of them because with Burn, Run, Draw or Fork they read as a sentence; 2 a fan wiki page title), among them Singing, Roaring, Crooked, Lazy, Dun, Roan, Idle. Real streams share plain names by the thousand and no list holds them all, so search a name before you put it on a published map. Licence: own work
Kind: all 23 words for a stream
Used widely 8
BrookA body of running water smaller than a river.
CreekIn North America and Australia, a stream smaller than a river. In Britain, a small inlet of the sea.
ForkA branch of a stream, or the point where a waterway splits in two.
FreshetA poetic word for a small stream, especially one that flows into the sea.
RillA very small brook.
Show all 23 words for a stream (18 more)
Used widely, continued
RiverA large and often winding stream that drains a land mass.
RivuletA small stream.
RunnelA small stream, or a small channel made for water to flow in.
Britain 6
BeckA stream or small river: a word of Norfolk and northern England.
BourneA stream or brook in which water flows only for part of the year.
BurnA large stream: a word of Scotland and northern England.
GillIn Britain, a rivulet or small stream; the same word can mean a ravine.
SikeIn Scotland and Northumbria, a small stream that often dries up in summer.
WinterbourneIn Britain, a stream that flows only in winter or after wet weather.
North America 4
BayouA slow-moving, often stagnant creek or river.
BranchIn the southern United States, a creek or stream that flows into a larger river.
CouleeA stream of the western United States or Canada that may run dry in summer.
RunA small creek: a word of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Dry country and far places 5
AnabranchA branch of a river that leaves the main stream and joins it again: a word used especially in Australia.
ArroyoA dry creek bed that fills and flows for a time after enough rain.
DrawA dry stream bed that carries water only in heavy rain or flood.
NullahChiefly in South Asia, a stream bed, ravine or other watercourse.
WadiA valley or stream bed in northern Africa and southwest Asia that stays dry except in the rainy season.
How this list was compiled: 23 real English words for running water. Each meaning and the place it is used were checked against the word's English Wiktionary entry on 2026-10-02 (linked on each line; CC BY-SA 4.0); the wording of each line is ours. Licence: own work
Where it ends: all 50 endings
In a bigger river 10
doubles a greater river and takes none of the credit
falls into a larger river over a ledge
gives its water to a river that keeps its own name
is swallowed by a muddy river twice its size
joins a bigger river at a ferry town
joins a tidal river among the boatyards
joins the main river so quietly that maps disagree on where
meets its sister stream below a stone bridge
meets three other streams at a market town
slips into a canal behind a row of warehouses
Show all 50 endings (40 more)
In the sea 10
drops off a sea cliff as a thin white fall
empties into a harbor under the fish market
ends in a salt marsh loud with geese
enters a fjord below a hanging valley
loses itself in a mangrove shore
meets the tide in a wide brown estuary
reaches the sea beside a lighthouse
reaches the sea through a gap in the dunes
runs out across a shingle beach
spreads into a delta of a hundred reedy islands
In a lake or a marsh 10
becomes a string of beaver ponds
drains into a lake that freezes every winter
ends in a marsh where herons nest
ends in a mountain tarn with no outlet
feeds a mill pond and stops there
fills a long lake between two hills
pours into a reservoir above a drowned village
runs into an oxbow lake it once made itself
spills into a flooded quarry
wanders into a fen and never comes out
In dry ground 10
disappears down a sinkhole in a pasture
dries to a chain of pools by midsummer
ends in a dry lake bed that fills once in ten years
goes into a cave and has not been followed
is drunk up by orchards before it reaches anywhere
is lost in the gravel fan at the foot of the mountains
runs underground for a mile and comes up cold
sinks into a white salt pan
thins to a damp line across the desert
vanishes into the sand a day's walk from its source
What it is known for 10
can be stepped across at its source
carries rafts of timber down each April
floods the same meadow every spring
has changed its bed twice in living memory
is crossed by a ford that every cart still uses
marks the border between two counties that both claim it
rises from a spring under a church wall
runs backward at the highest tides
runs through the middle of a town in a stone channel
turns nine mill wheels on the way down
How this list was compiled: Our own list of 50 lines on where a river ends or what it is known for, written on 2026-10-02 and checked by script against every list on this site. Licence: own work