Atlas entry
Middle-Earth Easterling Name Generator
Easterling names with martial rhythm, eastern courtly influence, and optional epithets suited to captains, riders, and wandering warriors.
Generator
Easterling Name Forge
Freeze parts, lock whole names, and favorite the ones you want to keep.
Tolkien almost never let the Easterlings speak in their own words. The names that survive, like Bór and Ulfang, are elvish descriptions pinned on them from outside, and the one name closer to their own voice, Khamûl, comes with no translation at all. This generator fills that silence with an invented eastern register: short given names closing soft or hard, paired with a harder, title-like epithet.
How the name is built
A shared opening sound like Bez- that ties relatives together, the same job the canon Ul- opening does across Ulfang and his sons.
The closing sound of the given name itself, either a soft -a or -ja sound or a hard cluster like -gûr or -dûz.
The opening word of the epithet, sometimes echoing the canon root Bor- or evoking real steppe titles like khan with an opening such as Tar-.
The hard, clipped closing sound of the epithet, almost always landing on r, k, n, or l.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Pair a short, two to three beat given name with one hard-sounding epithet, the way this pool pairs Suldûz with Tarkhûn.
- Let related characters share an opening sound, the way Ulfang's sons all opened on Ul- in the books, or this pool's Bezgûr and Bezuna share Bez-.
- Save the heaviest û sounds for the epithet slot. It carries that guttural texture more often than the given name does in this pool.
Don’t
- Don't build a full grammar or sentence around the name. Tolkien never wrote a language for this people, so one given name plus one epithet is enough.
- Don't spell out the epithet's meaning in English inside the name. Khamûl stands alone as a name, it isn't written out as the shadow of the east.
- Don't end an epithet on a soft vowel. Almost every epithet in this pool closes hard, on r, k, n, or l, so a soft ending will read as off-pattern.
- given name: two to three beats, closing on a soft -a or -ja sound or on a hard consonant cluster like -gûr or -dûz
- epithet: almost always two beats, closing hard on r, k, n, or l, with the guttural û sound turning up more here than anywhere else in the name
- shared family opening sound across related characters, such as Bez- in this pool or Ul- in the books, doing the job a surname would do
Famous names, decoded
Ulfang the Black
The Silmarillion
His name reads as Sindarin for horrible beard, almost certainly a mocking name elves gave him after his betrayal, not something his own people called him. His sons Uldor, Ulfast, and Ulwarth all keep the Ul- opening, the clearest example of Tolkien tying kin together with a shared sound rather than a surname.
Bór the Faithful
The Silmarillion
Bór's name is Sindarin for something close to faithful, the positive mirror of Ulfang's mocking name, and his sons Borlach, Borlad, and Borthand all share his Bor- root. It shows the same family-sound device can carry praise instead of judgment.
Khamûl
The Lord of the Rings and Unfinished Tales
Khamûl, the shadow of the east, is the one Easterling Tolkien named in something closer to their own voice rather than an elvish nickname. He gave it no confirmed meaning, just a short, hard, heavily-û sound, which is exactly the texture this generator leans on.
Roots and elements
| Ul- (from ulug) | horrible; a judgment-root elves attached to one whole family | Ulfang, Uldor, Ulfast, Ulwarth |
| -dor (from taur) | lord, ruler | Uldor, read as horrible ruler |
| Bôr / Bor- | faithful, steadfast, trusty vassal | Bór, Borlach, Borlad, Borthand |
| fang | beard | Ulfang, read as horrible beard |
| balc | horrible, in Westron | Balchoth |
| hoth | horde, in Sindarin | Balchoth, horrible horde |
| Rhûn | east; the Sindarin place name for the Easterlings' homeland | the land of Rhûn |
| -ûl ending | no settled meaning, but attested as a real Easterling name in a hard, guttural style | Khamûl |
| -una / -tuna ending | soft closing sound used for this generator's given names, no canon source | Feltuna, Bezuna, Othuna |
| -ja ending | another soft given-name closing sound in this pool | Suthja, Memja |
| Bez- opening | shared family-style opening sound, this pool's own version of the canon Ul-/Bor- idea | Bezgûr, Bezuna |
| -gûr ending | hard, guttural closing sound | Bezgûr, echoed in the epithet Azgûr |
| -dûz ending | hard closing consonant cluster | Suldûz |
| Bor- (epithet form) | heroic-sounding opening reused as an epithet root, deliberately close to the canon Bór but not a translation of it | Bordûk, Borgûl |
| Tar- | opening evoking real steppe titles like khan or tarkhan, not a Tolkien word | Tarkhûn, Tarzun |
| -khûn / -zun | title-like closing sound with a steppe flavor | Tarkhûn, Tarzun |
| -ak / -uk ending | hard, clipped epithet closing | Gundak, Korbuk |
| -zar ending | epithet closing sound giving a title-like weight | Dawnzar |
Frequently asked
Did Tolkien ever write an actual Easterling language?
No. He built Quenya and Sindarin for the elves and even a black speech for Mordor, but never a language for the Easterlings themselves. Every Easterling name that survives in the published books comes to us filtered through elvish or Westron.
Are names like Bór and Ulfang real Easterling words?
Almost certainly not in the sense of being what the Easterlings called themselves. Bór reads as Sindarin for something close to faithful, and Ulfang reads as Sindarin for horrible beard, both most likely elvish descriptions of the man's character rather than names his own people used.
Why do fantasy Easterling names sound Mongol or Turkic?
Tolkien left almost no source material for this people's own speech, so games, adaptations, and generators like this one fill the gap with a steppe-flavored register: hard consonant clusters, a heavy û sound, and titles that echo khan or tarkhan. That is a fan and industry convention, not something Tolkien himself wrote.
What does the epithet in an Easterling name do?
It stands in for the kind of descriptive byname Tolkien used in English, like Bór the Faithful or Uldor the Accursed. Here it's rendered as one invented eastern-sounding word instead of an English phrase, but the job is the same: passing judgment on the person.
Who is the one Easterling Tolkien actually named himself, in something like their own voice?
Khamûl, the Ringwraith called the shadow of the east and the black Easterling. Tolkien gave it no confirmed meaning, only a short, hard, heavily-û rendering of the man's own name, which is the closest canon gets to this people speaking for themselves.