How do you name your World? (Or nations, etc., for that matter...)

[shifty-eyed]

Our home-brew world doesn't have a name (if it does, its called Alder because my co-creator had the idea of setting it on an Alder-disk). But we did have the idea that there would be at least four continents with the campaign taking place in the central continent.

Because we wanted an Arabic flavor to the world, I ended up calling it ana-Toht which I found in an Egyptian Phrase book and means "I'm lost." It seemed appropriate.

As I progress with adding names, I usually keep tons of bookmarks and reference materials related to the languages that I'm interested in using (in this case, Arabic, Persian, and various Berber languages) and I pick phrases that seem appropriate. From time to time, I'll add puns (Wadi al-Baghendi refers to LOTR; al-Waïz-izi, a ruin which is not "always easy" to get through). And, after reading too much and having my eyelids glaze over, I'll also start making stuff up that roughly fits in with what I'm doing.

[Karro]

Interesting set of perspectives.

I'm thinking now, there's a corallary question: "does it matter what you call your world".

I know Tolkien called his world "Arda" or "Middle-earth". C.S. Lewis called his Narnia (but that is more correctly a nation name, not a world name). A few others have such names. But I'm thinking of some contemporary fantasy novels... where the world is essentially nameless. Robert Jordan's world is called "Randland" because the fans had nothing else to call it, and Jordan gives the world no name. I recently read the first Song of Fire & Ice book, and AFAIK, while the continent the story takes place on is called "Westeros", the world itself has no name.

That being said, we fantasy mappers like to name things.

So... here were the competing names for my own world: previously I called it "Aterra"... which is just latin "Terra" with an "a" thrown on the front to make it "not latin". More recently I've been calling it "The Skein", a short form of "The Skein of the Seven" which, as I mention above, is a culturally-specific name for the world, but it reflects the culture in which the story I'm... ahem... "writing"... is initially set.

[Ascension]

I like weird naming as long as it is reinforced often enough so that I don't forget it The Skein seems fine to me and immediately sets a mood for the culture.

[Karro]

I like weird naming as long as it is reinforced often enough so that I don't forget it The Skein seems fine to me and immediately sets a mood for the culture.

That's a comforting sentiment. Thanks.

[Gamerprinter]

While sometimes I really think about a name. My current Japanese setting is actually Japanese a word that describes the setting: Kaidan = Ghost Story.

Often short stories or poetry written long ago by me, pops up in memory and the place names I invented them seem appropriate to a world I map now.

Darkovia, was one of those names, which is my vampire town in the CWBP, as well as the nearby khanate capital of Calishem. That name is a derivative of Kalim Shan which I always thought sounded Chinese, and I gave it a more arabic sound with Calishem.

Another fictional place name from the past, that I may reuse some day is the Duchy of Dernallion, a rather French-English sound to it.

I try to fit the name with the history and the language, but often just pops into my head - so I can't completely describe the methodology of my naming conventions, but that's some clues.

GP

[science&creativity]

Interesting set of perspectives.

I'm thinking now, there's a corallary question: "does it matter what you call your world".

I know Tolkien called his world "Arda" or "Middle-earth". C.S. Lewis called his Narnia (but that is more correctly a nation name, not a world name). A few others have such names. But I'm thinking of some contemporary fantasy novels... where the world is essentially nameless. Robert Jordan's world is called "Randland" because the fans had nothing else to call it, and Jordan gives the world no name. I recently read the first Song of Fire & Ice book, and AFAIK, while the continent the story takes place on is called "Westeros", the world itself has no name.

That being said, we fantasy mappers like to name things.

So... here were the competing names for my own world: previously I called it "Aterra"... which is just latin "Terra" with an "a" thrown on the front to make it "not latin". More recently I've been calling it "The Skein", a short form of "The Skein of the Seven" which, as I mention above, is a culturally-specific name for the world, but it reflects the culture in which the story I'm... ahem... "writing"... is initially set.

I think you raise a good point with this, especially the examples of published fantasy where the world is never named at all. probably it's down to personal taste and consistency. if the setting involves a number of finely detailed cultures, then probably having multiple, thought-out names for the world (...or the world as defined by those cultures) would be a natural follow through - or at least having one thought-out name for the world from the culture that is primarily featured in the story. on the other extreme a world-map made purely for practice/aesthetics doesn't necessarly need any thought beyond that the name of the world "sounds fitting".
and clearly, it's entirely possible to write looooonng epics without ever giving any name for the world itself at all, so that has been established as an option for anyone who doesn't want to deal with the intricacies of world-naming.


...place-names, of course, open a whole new can of proverbial worms....

[Rythal]

I've spent far to much time randomly pressing generate Sci-fi map on donjon by now, so be careful you dont waste the entire evenin

[Ryan K]

I tend to recycle names I liked but didn't use in older aborted stories I have written in the past, usually with a slight change to keep it fresh.

The main city in my story, Demazon, is modified from another city I had called Del Mason, and a smaller but as important placename is Port Thafirton, which is a leftover from an RPG I used to play (which came from frequent discussions about what to call that first town, before we abrdiged it to Thafirton).

With naming conventions, and usually for the more important places, I take into account the possible history of the place, who originally founded it, what language they spoke might have sounded like, all that sort of stuff. Nothing specific, unless specifics are strictly required for the sake of the story, but enough so that the place name might tell a little part of it's own story in itself.

For unimportant, uninteresting or anywhere else, I usually just look in a phone-directory and bastardise the names that seem in keeping with the region at hand.

[Meridok]

Hmmm... I could probably write a novel or two on my naming habits, really. But I`ll try and keep it short!

When I first name a place, be it for a story or a map (one usually follows the other!), I tend to just create something that has some kind of theme to it or definite meaning or a certain sound. `Certain sound` is the least common, I think, at least lately, for generating place names - people names are a different matter. But here are a couple examples of my naming habits:

`City of Blades`: a rather straightfoward name, no? It was a city that spawned a world, as it were, because I created this rather psychedelic, assassin-ridden (yay! tropes!) city that sort of needed a world. The name of the island it is on (and the name of the people who inhabit island & city) came later, and was `Naxis`and `Naxians`. Normally, especially for cities, I would translate the name into the local language or what-have-you, but the City of Blades of literally called that, in its language and by outsiders (with good reason, too).

Thir, Arcuu, Guil, Nuk, Agnu, Lung, Itimus (or Ytimus, or Itymus), Lindorm (Lyndorm), Phoen (or Fen), Wyvern (or Wivern): If you think some of those names sound like types of dragons, you`re right. They are all names of kingdoms (well, they aren`t all actual technical kingdoms, but be that as it may) for a world that I created because I wanted dragons. So, since I couldn`t come up with a naming scheme world-wide, I flipped through a dragon book and took names of types of dragons. That was over a year ago, and the names have morphed since then. Thir (which should technically have a double-dot on the i) was originally Theer, which came from `there` at the end of Amphithere. Arcuu comes from Arsupia which came from Marsupial. Guil (again, should have a double dot) was originally Gouille from Gargouille. Nuk was Nuck from Knucker. Lung hasn`t changed at all. Lindorm comes from Lindworm. Phoen comes from Phoenix. Wyvern hasn`t really changed either. But Agnu and Itimus... I`ll be damned if I can remember what they originally were! Something draconic, anyhow. (One thing should be noted about these names - these are all the `Thirianized`versions, because that is the culture I am writing or viewing the story or world from).

Anyway, wherever I get inspiration, I always edit and modify for regional and world names, and play around with spelling and pronunciation and take language into consideration once the original names are settled.

But sometimes my names are just laziness. Here are the cities&towns of Thir: Riverport, Port, Northtown, Crossings, The Royal City...
Crossings is the only one that has really changed - it was originally The Crossings or The Three Crossings, because it lies at... a crossroads. Yeah. xD

[Cèsar de Quart]

I name my fantasy world just "World" in different languages. As I'm not a philologist or linguist, I just use existing languages in the Middle Ages to represent translations of the actual languages they use.

So my world is "The World", which is logic and you'll find it in every existing culture. The "World", "Large World" or "Wide World".

About nations and cities, I make ethimologies. For example:

The town of Caracador is in an Occitan-speaking region, but the first inhabitants of the area were Celts, forefathers of the Welshmen. So the town was originally called "Stone cut", in middle Welsh being the root for "stone", careg, and for "to cut", which is dor, because it was the first town built on stone in the area. When the Cautans, Romanesque-speakers, conquered the area, they named it Caracador (Carecadorum in Latin), adapting the phonetics. Nevertheless, the Welshmen who live in the north still call the town Careggtor.

The same with another example: the "Clear Town", which in Cataresque (Occitan) is Ameloder, but in Audrian (Welsh) is Amlymadref.

Etc.

I did this with most of my towns. I don't like making up names which mean nothing just because they're fancy.

***

For in case someone is interested, here's a brief scheme of how toponimy evolves usually:

1) the name means something in the tongue of their first inhabitants/builders, and this something evolves as the inhabitants language changes.
2) Conquerors or new settlers arrive. They name the place with a phoneic adaptation of the original name (Lugdunon in Gaulish -> Lugdunum in Latin, today's Lyon in French) or with a new name (Legio Gemina for today's León, in Spain; Caesarea Augusta for today's Saragossa)
3) New conquerors may adapt the city name to their language phonetics (Iznik, Turkish for the Greek form Nikaia; Estives, Catalan for Greek Thebai) or adapt the meaning of the city to their own language because there's some word with similar phonetics but no meaning relation. Example: Brugge in Flandres was called Brujas (which means "witches") during Spanish occupation (and still today is called that way in Spanish). Legio in northern Hispania derivated his original meaning "Legion" to Spanish "Lion". And now, the coat of arms of the city is a purple lion on silver field.
4) Foreing peoples can name existing places whatever they like (exonyms). Miklagard was the Scandinavian name for Constantinople, today's Istanbul, for a long time. It meant "Great City". Istanbul iself is the Turkish deformation of Greek "Eis tin Polis", meaning "to the City". Constantinople was The City (the biggest city in Europe during most of the Middle Ages). Wales is the Germanic way to say "the Others", because in Welsh it's Cymru. This "walhla-" Germanic root is usual, even for non-Germanic countries. Wallachia would be an exonym meaning also "the others". You'll find it in Wales, Cornwall (the -wall part), Wallonia, Włochy (Polish for Italy), the Gauls (the Romans got the name from a German tribe) even in the word "walnut" (literally Foreigh Nut).

I hope it helps someone with interest in constructing a senseful ethimology for his fantasies.

Take care!