creating a world

[oncewaslost]

well, i know there's something on this somewhere but i can't find it/i'm lazy. anyway, i was wondering, how do places get named? how are mountains named? how are seas/rivers/lakes/streams/plains named? how about roads and countries? yeah, so basically, how does geography get named?

 

[GK]

Good question. Easy when it's set in the real world. Even if it's a fictional place, I pull names from street signs, local rivers, whatever. I'll often think about a real place somewhere and just tweak the place names.

Fantasy/Other worlds are more difficult for me. Sometimes, I go through older literature (bible) or foreign lit to find words I like and build a name from it. I lived in Finland for a while and still speak some of it, so sometimes when I need to make up a word (such as a name/place), I'll pull from something in Finnish. I once created a space station named Jouluu'Puu, which fit the story/theme/feel really well. A Finn who read the story wrote to me and laughed, knowing Jouluu'Puu is Finnish for "Santa Claus."

 

[Blessed-one]

yeah, observe how older places are named and you'll see a pattern.

or if not, just make your own!

 

[rosemerry]

Places and things are usually named after the founder or the person who discovered it. Sometimes a name just gets adopted becuase over a period of time the people of the place just call it the one name.

 

[avatarblade2000]

I follow similar methods. Typically, I pick out elements or traits associated with landmarks, areas, cities and countries (etc., so on and so forth), like "tall," or "elegant," and I do some research. I look up the ancient spellings and origins of the words, do some tweaking, make a new word, then institute in. In that way, the names are still appropriate, even if it's only to the author.

If all else fails, find a random name generator on the Net and use them. They're good for naming geography, but you can use them for the names of characters too.

 

[Locket]

Sometimes, I go through older literature (bible) or foreign lit to find words I like and build a name from it. I lived in Finland for a while and still speak some of it, so sometimes when I need to make up a word (such as a name/place), I'll pull from something in Finnish. I once created a space station named Jouluu'Puu, which fit the story/theme/feel really well. A Finn who read the story wrote to me and laughed, knowing Jouluu'Puu is Finnish for "Santa Claus."

Interesting idea... is there a place on the internet that keeps old or foriegn words in a list of some sort?

 

[Lessien]

I ask my little brother for help. He seems to have a knack for coming up with fantasy/sci fi place names.

 

[shirono]

I'm working on some stories now and when I was making the maps for them I had a lot of trouble coming up with names for cites and continents. Those name generators worked well for names in my books, but not so much on the place names. I took several online dictionaries for latin, japanese, and german adn just used words form those nad changed a few things in them. They ended up being pretty good names. Also you can just put together some random sounds and it might sound good.

 

[Greythanis]

i think a good idea to do is to come up (in the case of a brand new world) with just a few words of the local language, and to set some paterns. for example, many eastern countries in my story have the particle ES in them.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

(Just as an aside: joulupuu means "Christmas tree". Santa Claus is called "joulupukki", although the literal translation of this term would be "Christmas GOAT".)

Tolkien put an enormous significance on names, and all of them have a very specific meaning (although few people notice that, since they are usually based on languages that he invented himself...).

Many real place names are so ancient that most people just don't remember that they once signified anything else: Mountains and rivers are often named after a god that was supposed to live in there, like the Japanese kami. Take the river Danube, for example: it's named after the Celtic goddess Dana, ancestral mother of the Tuatha de Danann, the ancient god-heroes of Ireland.
Myths abound with explanations for place names, although most of these are later rationalizations for much older constructs. For example, mediaeval scribes claimed that Britain was named after the Trojan exile Brutus, a fictional nephew of Aeneas. But of course we know that this is a false etymology these days.

Nothing's as hard as thinking up fitting names.

 

[gitamerah]

Sometimes, city names have a certain meaning that describes what the city is known for. For example, Bethlehem means "House of Bread".

I was told that Chicago is actually derived from a Native American language which means "smelly onion". Before it was bought out from the Native Americans, the Chicago used to be a swampy area. Maybe that's why the Native Americans called the place "smelly onion." And somehow, the native term for "smelly onion" (i.e, Chicago) stuck with us until today.

If you're trying to create an entirely new fantasy realm... my advice is to determine the type of language that the people there speak before you begin naming places. You don't actually have to create words specifically. Just have a general idea of what the sound is like (i.e, sounds like German, or French, or Gaelic, or Chinese, etc.)

After all, it wouldn't make sense to have a Chinese sounding name when the people there speak a language that sounds like German.

 

[Jinn_Ku]

Another option is to translate simple words from obscure languages to be most helpful. Especially uncommon words or phrases, or something relative to what you're naming. For instance, fels (according to one translator) is German for rock. So now you have the Fels Mountains. This works well if you have no intention of translating your work for a German audience. If you use a language like Aztec, then that concern really becomes a non-issue.

 

[Mr_Hursh]

I had trouble coming up with original names for the project I'm working on. At first I would take names from history - and I still do some times - but recently, after expanding my primary language, I have been able to make truly unique names. Now I get a lot of "inspiration" from German for one of my races.

How I name places... Well, most of the places were named before I invented my language, so they really don't mean anything. Some of the places are named for how they look though, like if there are some hills covered in yellow flowers, I would call them "the Yellow Hills" Original, I know...
A lot of times I make the names first, and then I come up with the meaning. But I am TRYING to do it the other way around...

 

[Tariel]

I just randomly make up names...and to me they fit pretty well...some of my older stories I tended to borrow a little bit from Elvish...but not really anymore...I just pick a combination of letters I like and there's my name. (playing around with the letters while playing scrabble is a good way to do this...even though it does annoy the other players). Rearranging words (spelling them backwards, et.) works pretty well too...just don't use that one too often or people will start to catch on

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Some of the places are named for how they look though, like if there are some hills covered in yellow flowers, I would call them "the Yellow Hills" Original, I know...
A lot of times I make the names first, and then I come up with the meaning. But I am TRYING to do it the other way around...

Funnily enough, that's how most real places get their names: for what they look like. The Black Forest, the Redhorn, Cedar Peak...
The Celts had a whole TRADITION of naming places. And many, MANY myths are supposed to explain geographical peculiarities or place names whose origin has been lost.

In medieval England, historians tried to connect their country to the Aeneas-myth, and claimed that Britain had been named after the exiled Trojan Brutus. (Which is, of course, a false etymology.)
And you can find this sort of thing in the Old Testament, too: explanations of place names are quite common in the Pentateuch.

(By the way, it's REALLY amusing to hear that some of you think of German as an "obscure" language. )

 

[NeoScribe]

most of the time i just make up a name, ex. Lehen of Serrani, both guy and place are words i complety made up. other parts of the world are named after what they are ex. Glass Maze, a maze thats made of glass. other i took from mythology and put them in places that were fitting, ex. Gaea, the name of my fictional planet, in greek stories, Gaea was the mother earth.

 

[NeoScribe]

Changing the last letters in a word can help too , if I may add. All eight Unity Generals have a base in my story, each one is named after a Nazi death camp to show how evil they are. ex. Aushwitz and Triblinka, I just added -en to each one and presto! The Death Claw now rules from Aushwiten and Dread Shadow rules from Treblinkanen.

 

[Mr_Hursh]

I hate to say it, but I think that the practice of taking known names and inserting them into your writings in some form is cheap and tacky. If you're going to base a place on something real, make it more subtle.

 

[NeoScribe]

Its on purpose. Wanted people to make the connection.

 

[DarkLegend28]

Uhuh..... My names root from archaic names and other languages... It works for me.