Toponomy, or How to Name Places!

[Mistindantacles]

Not to necro an older thread - but what a great topic!

Having made too many D&D adventures to bother counting them - mostly homebrrew - this topic was of particular interest.

Like some others, I employ a convention to base names - characters, places, and landscapes - on other real world languages. In addition to modern languages (mostly European), I'll delve into older, even extinct, languages as well: Latin, Greek, Old/Middle English being the most common exmaples. I've even used Aramaic, various North American Indian tribal languages, and old Norse.

But I use these as a starting point only. The internet is a wonderful thing (for example: it brought me here, to all you fine folks); it makes it easy to find translations from English to these other languages. From there, I can begin to meld words or parts of words together to fit the particular linguistics that I am looking for.

So that's what I do.

Like I said: what a great topic!

[Facubaci]

In Argentina we have a lot of native names, specially in the north like my own city, Gualeguaychú, a mix of "yaguarí guazú" that means "river of big jaguar".
For me, they aren't cool as english names, such as Peterborough or Stratford-upon-Avon haha.

[vaiyt]

@Facubaci "yaguari guazú" sounds like it's Guarany, or at least related. It's one of my favorite languages =)

Here there's a whole lot of place names mixing native and African languages (though adapted, sometimes clumsily, to European spelling). My own neighborhood is named Pituba, which is a Tupy portmanteau meaning "Sea spray". Extremely appropriate, given that the salty breeze is a constant source of damage to my PCs.
Other native names from around me:
Abaeté (sinister - it's named after a lagoon with very dark waters)
Itapuã (alt. itapoan - rumbling stone - named after the noise made by the wind on the stones by the beach)
Itaigara (stone canoe - no idea why)
Paripe (lit. "at the pari", which was a wooden causeway used for fishing)
Pituaçu (big prawn - specifically a freshwater prawn native to the region, which is about the size of a large craw/y/fish/dad and ridiculously delicious)
Pirajá (full of fish - well, there is a lake nearby, so...)
Pernambués (from "a sea apart" or more literally "a big honking pond")
Periperi (a species of rush)
African names:
Ogunjá (a reference to Ogun, god of war and iron, making him a god of tools and all technology by extension. Pretty cool if you ask me. Wish more fantasy worlds took inspiration from Fon and Yoruba deities, but I digress)
Beiru (from Gbeiru, a slave that eventually inherited the farm where the neighborhood is now located)
Bonocô (from Baba Igunnuko, entity whose ritual used to be performed there)
Cabula (from kabula, music played by the slaves who were the main inhabitants of the area)

I also like to mix elements of two languages into something unrecognizable (aka the Star Wars method), or mix two "easy" methods of making names to create a more complex one (like make a cypher of a language then revert the word sounds).

[ChickPea]

I'm in Scotland and you come across Gaelic names fairly often here, even though only a tiny percentage of the population speak the language. However, Gaelic place names have a fantastic, other-wordly feel to them, and I wanted to use them in my maps. While researching, I stumbled across a page on the Ordnance Survey web site (the UK's official mapping agency) which gives root words and their meanings for Gaelic, Welsh and Scandinavian words:

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/reso...lacenames.html

If you click on the language you want to research, then click where it says 'A Glossary of [language name] elements', you get root words and their meanings and you can come up with some great names by combining words.

Not sure if many of you are already familiar with that Ordnance Survey page, as I'm pretty new to Cartographer's Guild, but thought I'd put it out there anyway as someone might find it useful.

[Kiba]

I love toponymy! Conlangs are great because I love coming up with conlangs that aren't ripoff Elvish like most post-Tolkien writers, but that just gets me lost in worldbuilding too much. Therefore, I go the George RR Martin method of "naming things in English, but evoking the feel of the region." Highgarden, the Red Keep, Winterfell, Storm's End, King's Landing, Casterly Rock--I love how those names immediately hit you in the weird little corners of your head.

For my urban-fantasy Moonflowers, I'd like to translate all the place-names into Irish Gaelic once I'm done, but so far I've just got a few names solidly locked down.

Cloncarrig (Stonemeadow) is a mortal town near the Cliffs of Moher, a few minutes away from real-life Ireland's Doolin. It's a very small tourist town constantly beset by the Fair Folk, and where the setting of the story is.

The Hawthorn Fort is a fairy-castle that my female protagonist inherits after her father kills the king in her defense. It's the seat of the Kingdom Under the Hills, a petty-kingdom in the northeast of Fairy-Ireland. Since the Fair Folk in Irish lore are said to live in fairy-hills (probably tombs or the remnants of hill-forts, according to archaeology), I wanted something that gave the feel of a strange unknown part of the world. (And indeed, it's not part of the physical world, but the Otherworld.) In Gaelic it would probably be "(an) Tir Faoi na Sidhe," "the land under the fairy-mounds."

In Irish, "Hawthorn Fort" is apparently "Dun Ske," which is disappointing because it's just so short. I love how "the Hawthorn Fort" sounds in English. A fort named for thorn-covered trees? Not a nice image. In Irish folklore, the hawthorn is a tree sacred to fairies--if you cut down a hawthorn tree, fairies will punish you and it will not be pretty. However, it's also a very important tree in hedgerows, which I found interesting.

I love the imagery of the masses of white flowers on dark thorny wood, so I thought up a castle built around a hawthorn maze. It's not supposed to be a pretty castle--impressive, yes, but pretty? Again, because the Fair Folk are seen as strange and ineffable in folklore, I wanted a castle that was strange-looking and primal. I made the complex consist of a bunch of massive towers and drystone walls built around an enchanted maze. The map I thought up is in the "Building/Structure map" forum.

Breachwood / Ballybegrosh is the Fair Folk village attached to the Hawthorn Fort. It's one of the few sizable breaks in the area's massive forest, the Timberdeep. I borrowed a teensy bit from George RR Martin's "Dothraki Sea," where it's not a literal sea, but the expanse of plains are so easy to get lost in that it's essentially the same thing. Where would you have enough trees for a hedge maze? A forest, duh. And the main forest in the Kingdom Under the Hills is called "the Timberdeep."

The Timberdeep's tentative Gaelic translation is "An Muir ag Coill," "the Sea of Wood," but I think it's too pretty-sounding and poetic. Like the Hawthorn Fort, I named my forest "the Timberdeep" because this is not a place to frolic around in: The Timberdeep "drowns" would-be invaders due to getting them lost in the trees, starving them out, or getting them lost and THEN starving them. If I can find an Irish translation of "Timberdeep" that's shorter and harsher-sounding, I'll use it.

The only major road in the northern half of the Kingdom Under the Hills is the Maygeld Road. "May" is another name for "hawthorn," and "geld" comes from Germanic for "money." The Maygeld has several toll-areas, so "hawthorn toll" becomes "hawthorn geld" becomes "maygeld." A pretty basic "named for its purpose" situation.

[Arawn]

I have made up an own language, but don't stick to it fully. I decided to make things universal in language by choosing a non-existing language as base. I myself don't speak Dutch and found Dutch too dull a language to use. English sounds much more dramatic, but then again I feared for the time whenever someone would try to translate names. I also didn't think it very honest to use English names. So, some examples: Caesléan is castle, móin is moorland, so a castle by the moors can be called Caesmóin.. Same for Car which is tooth or pinnacle or tower and Reach, sea, becomes Cair Reach: tower by the sea.

[ladiestorm]

hey ChickPea... you and I sort of have something in common! my father is a first generation American, from Scotland. My father's family originated above Inverness. My first word was actually in gaelic... according to both my parents. Gaelic was my first language... but I'll be hanged if I remember much of it now!

This is a really cool discussion! May I add my two cents worth? I just completed(and posted) my first local map, of the starting home base village for my Larysia Campaign. Larysia btw... is a take on my gaelic/celtic heritage. I'm part of the Cambell McLeod clan... and the Laery clan. Larysia is a changing of the name of Laery.

Anyway.. my player homebase... is the little village of Ardenvale. Now Arden is one of the cetic translations for the gaelic word river. And a vale, if memory serves, is a small pocket valley filled with trees. My village is in a little valley on the edge of my Wilderune Forest, and is nestled against the River Arden. Hence Ardenvale, literally means valley at the river. And my Wilderune Forest, is so named because of the wild magic that permeates it.

And in my Aeterna map(so named because the inhabitants are gods therefor immortal- not yet posted) there is a mountain range called the Dragonspire Mountains... because the peninsula they start in looks somewhat like a dragon's head, and the mountain range has the feel of the bony ridge down a dragon's back....

[Elterio Delgard]

I like to make a mini-language, just a few hundred words, making sure you have words for things like natural features, colors, Gods, common adjectives, etc. The you can convert your English names to more exotic-sounding names, but you have a pattern and a consistency you wouldn't have if you just made up random names.
For maximum consistency, you'd have to have some Religion, Culture, and History developed before you name most of your places.
Probably too much work for a quick map, but for a world you plan to spend a lot of time on, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.

I agree, I did the same thing when naming geographical features on one of my map. What I also like to do is having a different way to name things with different civilizations in my world. With the Kastosian Empire, i just made random names with a tendency to use some combinations of letter more often than others. With the Assionian Empire, I made some words for their tongue in order to have a unique way of naming. With the Nalohosian kingdom, I just took names of cities in Britain and changed them. A variety helps also. However, naming is the part that annoys me the most... The ever ending struggle of "which name would be best" x.x

Physical suite 1.jpgPolitical map Kastos5,1.jpg

[Aixelsyd]

I didn't closely examine the rest of the thread so I don't know if this has come up, but I like to keep in mind that people from different places call nations different things. Germany/Deutschland. Japan/Nippon. It can add a bit of interesting color to a fantasy world to have natives refer to their cities and landmarks as one thing and outsiders refer to them by another.

[Straf]

I've just read through this thread from start to finish and it is a fascinating topic. Thanks to all those who posted links to resources BTW

I saw that someone else has already mentioned the place names that say the same feature several times often from different languages or dialects. These are known as tautologies where parts that sound different mean the same thing. There are quite a lot of examples around the world. One of my favourites is the River Avon, with afon being the Welsh (and old Briton) for river. So it's the River River.

Another one is a place in Leicestershire called Breedon on the Hill. The Iron Age Celts, or perhaps some post Roman Celts, turned up and held a committee meeting, with each member submitting a suggestion on how to name this place that they've decided to set up shop around. Hilly McHillface was rejected on the grounds that it would make them a laughing stock. As it happened, so conservative were they that they settled on 'hill' but as they hadn't bothered to learn English yet they used their own language and called it Bree. Then some Germans came along and saw that they wanted in on the action and probably slaughtered the Celts but not before asking one of them where they were. Bree, said he, and was thanked with a seaxe to the throat. "This Bree" said the Saxons, "it's on a hill, let's call it Breehill" except they couldn't speak English either so they just called it Bree-don. Then some time later someone who could speak English turned up at this place they called Breedon and saw it was on a hill so they called it Breedon on the Hill. So that's how it became Hill Hill on the Hill.

These tautological references are not bound to the confines of our planet either. High up in the night sky it looks like someone has made a road of milk, so the Greeks decided to call it milky, only they didn't speak English so they called it Galaxias. We sometimes refer to this as the Milky Way Galaxy or the Milky Way Milky One. Suddenly Boaty McBoatface doesn't seem so crazy after all.


Naming is always a bit of a tricky one for me as I have to go back over the history of the place. I have decided that throughout history people have visited/invaded/conquered the land on several occasions and given it a name based on their own tongue. For example the first person to record it is an ancient traveller and chronicler who calls it 'island of the forgotten men' in his own tongue that gradually becomes shortened over time. But being out in a vast ocean and not easy to find it's sort of a mythical place to the inhabitants of the main continent. The name it is known as in the [story's] current era will likely come from the name of the last leader who found and conquered it. Given that I plan on a few groups happening on the place by accident I may be able to include a tip-top touch of tautological toponyms.