Drow House Names

About Drow Names

The drow are the dark elves — descendants of an elven lineage that, long ago, was cast down into the Underdark after taking the wrong side in a war whose details the surface world has mostly forgotten. They have lived in the lightless deep for so many generations that their skin has turned the color of ash and their eyes have learned to see in the absence of every sun. They build cities in vast caverns lit by witch-fire and spider-glow, organized by Houses whose feuds are older than any surface kingdom.

Drow society is matriarchal, ruthless, and theologically intricate. Most drow cities worship the spider-goddess Lolth, whose priestesses hold both spiritual and political authority. House politics is a permanent slow-motion war — alliances shift, assassins move, daughters succeed mothers — and drow grow up learning that every smile contains some calculation. Not all drow approve of this. A drow who walks away from House and goddess, who refuses to lift the knife when expected, is rare but not nonexistent — and such drow often surface in the world above, hunted by their kin and viewed with suspicion by everyone else.

It would be a mistake to read drow as simply villainous. Their art is exquisite, their swordwork unmatched, their mourning songs the most beautiful music in the known world. They are not evil because they are drow; they are exactly as dangerous as the system they live inside has demanded of them. Some drow live and die without ever questioning it. A few do question it, and from those few come the surface-walking drow whose stories the bards tell.

Drow Naming Conventions

Drow names are liquid in the mouth and sharp at the edges — they tend to mix smooth elvish vowels with surprise consonants. Male names: Belaern, Drizzt, Houndaer, Ilphukiir, Jhulae, Krenaste, Malag, Rizzryl, Solaufein, Tebryn, Tsabrak, Velkyn, Zaknafein. Female names: Akordia, Briza, Drisinil, Eclavdra, Faeryl, Greyanna, Imrae, Jhaelryna, Larael, Nedylene, Phaere, Quenthel, Sabrae, Triel. House names are ancient, syllabic, and often unsettling to surface-dwellers: Baenre, Do'Urden, Faen Tlabbar, Hun'ett, Mizzrym, Oblodra, Tormtor, Vandree, Xorlarrin. A drow is always introduced House-first in the Underdark — "Drizzt of House Do'Urden" — and the omission of a House at introduction is itself a statement, usually a bitter one.