The Quenya Name Generator

Well, it's done.  It took a long time and lots of hard work (most of it not from me), but the Quenya Name Generator is now AUTOMATIC.  No more messing around with tables and using your own brain like a sucker.  Now all you have to do is click on fun little radio buttons and Pixellated Fëanor does the work for you!*  How great is that?

*Standard disclaimer: Pixellated Fëanor is a union employee and his contract does not require him to do all the work.  Some thinking on the part of the generator user is still required.

Getting Started

This is the easy part.  Scroll down a bit, and you'll see a frame full of words and buttons.  Just like the old generator, you're going to pick two words: one from each column.  Just like magic, they will appear on the right side of your screen!  You'll be able to get a preliminary idea of how the words sound together.  Remember that you always get your best results by choosing two words that aren't too similar.

Once you've chosen your words, Ask Pixellated Fëanor how they go together to form a name.  Frequently, words will fit together as-is with no adjustment required.  But if there is an adjustment, the razor-sharp brain of Pixellated Fëanor will do it for you!**  Or, at the very least, tell you that you screwed up beyond help.

**Standard disclaimer:  Pixellated Fëanor is a cheap digital semblance of the original Fëanor, whose consulting fees are far beyond the scope of this lowly name generator.  Because he is the illegitimate lovechild of a WinXP machine and Elrohir's Super Nintendo, he is unable to do anything but follow the instructions written into his programming.  This sometimes leads to errors. Deal with it.

Making Masculine and Feminine Names

My word!  The guesswork has been taken out of this, too!  Well, almost.  Despite our best intentions, it is still possibly to make feminine names on the masculine setting and vice versa. The settings merely filter out gender-specific words and mess around with suffixes.  You still need to decide for yourself whether a name sounds masculine or feminine.


Male Names: English            Male Names: Quenya            Female Names: English            Female Names: Quenya







So now you have your name!   Keep thinking about it, because you're not finished yet.  Here are a few things that Pixellated Fëanor is too lazy to check for:

Length.  This is an important one.  Pixellated Fëanor can't count.  Nor can he read.  He is a GIF.  GIFs are not good at math, and they are worse at English.  Count the syllables in your name.  Are there more than four?  It's too long.  Quenya names can be two (Indis), three (Elenwë) or four (Findaráto) syllables long.  Five is pushing it.  Shorter is better.

Accents.  Further on the topic of Pixellated Fëanor not being able to read, he won't be able to tell when there are too many accents crowded together in a name.  Something like Cúlúno might seem fine to him, but you know it looks stupid.  Drop one of those acutes.  Which one is up to you and how you want the name to be pronounced.  Two acute accents separated by another syllable, though, would be fine.  Yárolótë works.  And remember: an  ä, ë or ö doesn't count as an accent.  One of these can sit alongside an acute no problem.

Repeated Syllables.  Elves do not like repetition.  For obvious reasons, I won't say that again.  But they don't like having the same syllable twice in a row.  When this happens, the two samey syllables magically meld into one.  For example, a name like Coivavanimon will simplify down to Coivanimon.  And wouldn't you know, but similar syllables can do the same thing: Nyellelaurë simplifies to Nyellaurë.  Repeated similar syllables don't have to simplify if the name sounds alright with the two as they are, but they can do so to help out with sound, pronunciation, or length.

Sounding Stupid.  Does it sound stupid?  If so, it's wrong.  Elves do not want stupid-sounding names.  If it's funny-sounding, weird, hard to pronounce, or awkward, even if Pixellated Fëanor says it's fine, take a pass and try again.  Pixellated Fëanor can adjust vowels, pick out common errors, and smite impossible combinations, but he has no common sense.  Only you can properly name your Elf.

How to Pronounce the Names (that is, which syllable is stressed)

Generally (and by generally I mean about half the time), the stress falls on the second-last syllable. Two-syllable names, such as Nerwen, are always the easiest, because the stress is always on the first syllable.  NER-wen. Three- or four-syllable names are a bit trickier.

If the second-last syllable contains an accented vowel (á, é, í, ó, ú), then it will be stressed, as in "Findekáno" : fin-de-KÁ-no.  Also, if the second-last syllable contains a diphthong or a consonant cluster, it will be stressed, as in "Laurefindil" or "Korollairë": lau-re-FIN-dil , ko-rol-LAI-rë.

If the second-last syllable has only one unaccented vowel followed by one or no consonants, it is a weak syllable and cannot be stressed.  The word "Teleri" has an unaccented "e" followed by a single "r".  In this case, the stress is shifted back to the third-last syllable, and the pronunciation is TE-le-ri.  The same goes for "Amárië", in which the second-last syllable, the "i", has no consonant cluster following it.  The pronunciation is therefore a-MÁ-ri-ë.  Note that the "i" and "ë" here are two separate syllables.  An "e" with the little dealies above it is always sounded, not blended into a diphthong.  So though the name might look similar to the English "Marie",  it really is pronounced a-MÁ-ri-ë instead of A-ma-rie.

Some examples of second-last syllable stress:
Elemmírë = el-em-MÍ-rë (the "i" of "mí" is accented, so can receive the stress)
Ëarendil = e-a-REN-dil (there is a consonant cluster of "nd" after the second-last syllable's "e", so the "e" can receive stress)
Findaráto = fin-da-RÁ-to
Fëanáro = fe-a-NÁ-ro
Helcaraxë = hel-ca-RA-xë (the "x" here counts as a consonant cluster, because it is spoken as two distinct sounds and can be written as hel-ca-RAK-së)

Some examples of weak second-last syllables with displaced third-last-syllable stress:
Altáriel = al-TÁ-ri-el (since there is no vowel cluster after the "i", the "ri" is weak and the stress shifts to "tá")
Amárië = a-MÁ-ri-ë
Oromë = O-ro-më
Valinor = VA-li-nor


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This Generator was created by the glorious talent of Lenine, because my website skills are limited to basic HTML.