What am I actually naming?

[Sarithus]

Hello Guild. I still seem to have problems with place names. Not the names themselves, but what it is that I'm actually naming.

My maps are in a Tolkien style and because the map of Middle Earth has varying sizes of place names I still feel the need to think about my place names in terms of scale and size.

I name my maps like this:
Continent > Countries > Regions > Mountains & Rivers & Lakes etc.

I understand naming the continent and countries as that's pretty simple. I also understand naming Mountains and Rivers, but it's the smaller names which trip me up.

To me, GONDOR, ERIADOR, ARNOR AND MORDOR are countries on the continent of Middle Earth. Rhovanion in the East being one massive country.

So on my Ulthui map Tulgreyson, Thyandul. New Saranai and other names of the same size are countries.

However, things get somewhat confused when I have established the countries. I don't know how many regions to include. (As a side note it seems odd that there are such small things as bridges included in the map of Middle Earth, but that could just be story based)

Take the country of Gondor. Inside of Gondor is Ithilien which is apparently just a 'region'. The word region doesn't really help me understand what it is.

But I've done the same thing on Ulthui. In Thyandul I have regions (smaller names) called Althari, Adrinados and Harthurin but if I'm being honest I just put those there so I can fill up the map. I don't actually know what they are except the vague term of regions in a country.

So how do you decide what it is your naming?

Thanks.

[Chick]

Names are made up by the inhabitants of a place. Normally, things that have names have them because the local people need to refer them to specifically. Cartographers just put those names on a map.

I'll give you an analogy ... in English, there are three main words for when it is snowing .... flurries, snow, blizzard. In Eskimo, there are 23 words for snowfalls, because (according to my linguistics professor), when you live where snow is so important to life, you need to describe the variations more precisely.

In naming places on a map, you name them as precisely as is needed to distinguish the important ones. In one area of the map, you may name things in a lot more detail than in another simply because more people live there and need to have the names to discuss what they need to discuss. In New York City, you need a lot more depth of naming than in East Podunk, North Dakota.

[Sarithus]

Thanks for the reply, but that doesn't really solve the problem of what it is that I'm naming. I understand that certain areas will have more names than others, but like my posts says, often I have a hard time deciding on what it is those names actually are. 'Regions' doesn't sit well with me. Maybe the issues come from always doing continent maps. I think I could get my head round country maps more easily

Perhaps I'm over-thinking things.

[Larb]

It sounds like you are doing a top-down approach. Have you tried looking at it from the bottom up?

So for example imagine a village in one of your countries. What would they call the local region and how big is that "region" to them? Does it stop at the big river to the west and then beyond that, they call it something else? And is the region they live in important enough to be named on a map by those ruling over them? (like if they are a prosperous region known for their vineyards they might be worth noting on a map but if it's just a scattered bunch of small farming communities - perhaps not so much). Do they speak a different language or a dialect several towns and villages down the road? If so they will be called something else and so will the area they live in.

You could try approaching it like that.

[Falconius]

Names are specific to unique things. If you are using them as place holders in absentia of unique things, it is no wonder stuff gets confusing. I'd recommend before plopping down names decide what specific things they are naming, otherwise leave them off the map.

[Larb]

Oh also regions (especially in europe) can often get their name from the people who migrated into them ie: Burgundians, Danes, Franks, Lombards, Geats, West Saxons, etc.

[Sarithus]

How do you guys name in regards to language? If you have a map of a continent (with more than one country) is each 'region' name of a different language or one common tongue?

I had thought that my continent of Ulthui, with many different countries in it, was made by someone from Thyandul and that all the place names where in the language of that country and that Egura for example wold be called something different to the people that live in Egura. Though Ulthui is part of the Turinath Empire and so I suppose it could all be one common language, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

I need to get this sorted out before I move onto naming my other continent of Saranai in the same world as Ulthui, but this thread has just confused me more.

Edit: I think something that I might not be doing enough is naming towns. I know this is modern vs fantasy but looking at google maps region names aren't so much a thing and most of the names are for towns.

[Chick]

What Larb said is like what I was trying to say .... name things according to what the people who live there would name them (or not).

As for the language, a map language should be that of the reader/user, not the local inhabitants (unless the language plays a role in the story or plot, such as the moon runes on Bilbo's map).

For yourself, just call them whatever you want ... region, area, realm, district, section, expanse, territory, zone, locality, state, country, borough, province, district, invent your own word ... it really doesn't matter at all as long you know what you mean by it.

[Azélor]

How do you guys name in regards to language? If you have a map of a continent (with more than one country) is each 'region' name of a different language or one common tongue?

I had thought that my continent of Ulthui, with many different countries in it, was made by someone from Thyandul and that all the place names where in the language of that country and that Egura for example wold be called something different to the people that live in Egura. Though Ulthui is part of the Turinath Empire and so I suppose it could all be one common language, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

I need to get this sorted out before I move onto naming my other continent of Saranai in the same world as Ulthui, but this thread has just confused me more.

Edit: I think something that I might not be doing enough is naming towns. I know this is modern vs fantasy but looking at google maps region names aren't so much a thing and most of the names are for towns.

I name things according to the local culture, the official name using the same script. I tend to find a culture similar to the one I want in that area and take the name accordingly. It can have a real signification or it just sound similar. Some of these names are not definitive but if I decide to keep them, they will be fine. This gets more complicated for places like oceans/mountain ranges since they might have multiple names. Ideally it would be named according to the dominant culture in the area. It's also possible to take a more standard name like: Eastern sea. Even then, not everyone think it's in the east...

[J.Edward]

Hey Sarithus. After you said about Google maps and regions, it got me thinking. What is the purpose of your map?
What I mean is - most maps are produced for a specific reason or viewer. Google maps is to help people with directions so 'regions' aren't really a strong relevant thing.
If you don't have a strong purpose for your map maybe that is giving you some trouble.
When I approach doing a map, i'm usually thinking about what I'm trying to show most - the lay of the land, or cities, or political regions, or some such.
Somethings are just secondary to the main purpose of the map, those things usually get put in smaller text. The main things get larger text.

I don't know if that's helpful at all.
I would agree that the nation making the map is the one that determines the language of the map, generally speaking. And if the audience for the map speaks the language of Thyandul then the map would be written in the language of Thyandul.