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

[AlamoFiteCat]

At first I try to relate each area and the people that inhabit it with a certain language, religion, politics, cultural background etc.

For an example I have this country that is predominantly homogeneous in terms of racial/national diversity, like the majority is 80%. If they are a warlike, dominant people this means that all minorities will probably have their cultural heritage oppressed and thus, most of the places will have a similar morphology.

Another example will be a small and relatively young country which still does contain a majority of at least 65-70% but was conquered by another country at least 500 years ago and only recently gained it's independence. This means that other than the native majority deciding the names of places there will be many "residual" toponyms still named in the manner of the conquerors.

A third example would be a heterogeneous society which can have many different concepts of naming. Names can be determined as a cultural mix if the people live in harmony or different parts of the country will have different background for their respective toponyms.

After I decide the concept by which the places will be named I will look up different languages, both existing in the real world and from fantasy and start brewing names based on words from the said language.

[Vanoitran]

Naming usually comes last for me, its often based on what I want the land to represent (read: what is in the land) and if I can't think of anything personalized, I will take a Tolkein-y move and mesh languages (right now Im on a Mongolian-German mesh).

For example:

Land's economy is fishing based: The towns might be named something like Teem, Rot's Cove, Sailorhill or something generally fishing and nautical based. While the region may have a more creative name based on an imagined history.

or

Islands of the Land's shore are being invaded by demons from another realm -- the landmarks in that area will have names based off the demon's language (here it might be good to mesh languages) while the lands around those islands will tell about their nature of always defending against hordes of demons. Such as: Rykyan's Bastion, or The Walled Coast, or Fleetguard.

[Applejack]

What I see alot is that people either go too deep into fantasy names all the way, or too generic.
I myself took an approach a la Game of Thrones.
Westeros has those fantasy names, and generic ones, but that doesnt make it bad at all,
it makes (certainly non-fantasy readers) feel more familiar with the shizzle,
and with the right touch it can easily be made into realistic yet creative a la fantasy.
Look at names like Vale of Arryn or Winterfell, Harrenhal, King's Landing, or the fortress of Dragonstone.
Or a river called the Trident (for it splits into 3 branches reminiscent of a fork or trident)
Or a mountain(range) called the ''Mother of Mountains'' or the Frostfangs.
Such names are cool and make it less confusing and more realistic.

Now, if a fantasy word would contain only such, words containing real words, that'd be a bit lame.
But now look at Essos: Volantis, Meereen, Qarth, The Rhoyne, Krazaaj Zasqa.
and tons more.
martin also combined those mythic, creative names with the ''faraway lands'' or the lands outside of where the action takes place,
making it even more exiting. You'd wanna know more about those weird lands with those strange cultures and animals and Gods.

Lets say you got names like Yaratze.
It's a river for example.
And they travelled from Jugukuuluu(estonian-ish words, check out that language man) across the Toaitatar Plains toward the Yaratze.
To me (and many other readers) its just kinda meh.
it doesnt tell the reader anything, unless youre gonna explain the reason (if there is one) behind it. not only does that make it more boring
and slow, it's also gonna haunt you. And if there's translation for it because they have their own language, well, nice, but still. Keep it a bit down.
And it could go outta control, cuz creating your own language aint easy)

I'm a great fan of geographical names that got a ''realistic'' naming.
The Sloshing Snake or (got's) Blackwater Rush say alot more than the ''Yaratze''
Might be hard at words but eventually creative names come rolling out.
But don't completely leave the fantasy namings out.
I also got this part in my world where the namings are fantasy like, with exception of many geographical names.
What I also tend to do, as it makes it even more realistic: if you have a kingdom where they speak this language, have this culture, don't
create the names in such ways that they are completely different)

Like the town called Gossgaram is nearby Uilyakilithix.
Cmon guyssss.
If it was Gossgaram is near Motuggan, that's better.
I'd save that other name for another land, far away.
It gives the reader a sense that there's this culture, with similar names and ****.
In Greece, one island called Lesbos, the other one Mykonos, Hydra, Ikaria, Ios.
Like, oooh look. thats typically Greek.
You'd want that in your story too i guess?
if youre a fan of worldbuilding its pretty much a must imo.
I've got this desert region (although currently under occupation by a neighbouring empire) where many
towns and cities have the z and us and y in them.
Kayunus, Kososur, Talitaker.
Another region might have many names like Hrasar'Ta, H'ururge or whatever ****.

One name I liked alot was the Spine of the World, a mountain range, (forgot what series)
It's really creative yet gives a realistic feeling.
It tells you that its certainly a major mountain range, like the biggest of the world.
And probably very steep, theories and imaginations come to mind.
Whereas if it were called the T'aalam Mountains or simply he T'aalamis.
Its your own call, but the latter one is much...less memorable and interesting.

So just keep your namings and **** mixed and ordered.

[Naima]

Starting from your little intro... I took a similar route and I went to the roots of German Celtic and Latin lanfuages picki g the Indoeuropean word Tersā... little alteration and I called it Thersis.

[tabletopbitsandbobs]

I will sometimes take a word from the plot. Like Betrayal, or Brother....whatever is involved in the main plot for the world and throw it through Google Translate. See what pops up and see if anything sounds good. Oh! A tip...Say the names you come up with out loud., you never know how your players will make fun of your names until you hear it.

[NonnieW-A40]

I just created a couple of names, after a name generator didn't have anything which peaked my interest. At first, it was Farnia, but because it was only one letter from a popular movie, I eventually named it Interraton.

[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....

[keirdubois]

So... I've been thinking the past few days, since I posted the latest update to my "unnamed" project
How do you come up with the names for your worlds, nations, whatever? Why? Do those names mean anything to you, or to the people who populate your world? What does it mean, and why?

I've gone through years and years of several iterations of names with made-up words that had no logic to them, which I don't prefer to do anymore. I want to find some happy medium between the slog of making up entirely new fictional languages (Tolkein), which I'm not qualified to do, vs using English for "western" stuff and made up "exotic" names for "everything else" (GRR Martin), which seems too simplistic but alternately kinda accessible for lay audiences?

I'm currently sorta retconning/making up stuff that has some(?) logic(?), such as a region with medieval Iberian-style culture, called "The Orangelands" by outsiders but "Naran" by the native culture ("Naransi"). Naran being a diluted/derivative of the Spanish naranja. I've done the same for a Celtic-ish island chain called The Green Jewels, which ended up being "Glaseodae" which (if I remember right) is a corruption of something similar in either Irish or Scottish Gaelic.

I've been doing that thing with names where the English name is large and the fictional name is smaller/underneath it, but I'm thinking about reversing that. I don't feel like a detail freak about this stuff—I'm not the linguist (or, really, the hard-core fantasist or gamer) in my family—but honestly seeing the simple Westerosi place-names was kinda liberating for me. I don't want to create something that's a turnoff because of illogical or weak names.

[seusomon]

I know this is a really old thread, but...

The inhabitants of a world will likely only name it if they have a concept of other worlds from which it needs to be distinguished. On Earth, this mostly awaited the advent of scientific astronomy, when the planets were recognized as being other worlds. The Germanic "Middle Earth" which Tolkien used referred to it being between the world of the gods and the underworld. Latin "Terra" was not used as the name of the World: I've never seen a world map with this title. Instead, most old maps in Latin were titled "Orbis Terrarum" (Globe of Lands) or some variation. Greek Gaia was a personification of Earth as contrasted with Sea and Sky, not the name of the World as a whole.

So if you need an endonym for the world itself, you first need to ask about the cosmology of its inhabitants, and why they would think of the world as one of several.

[TurtleSoup]

I name my map using a rule-set I come up with for each country, depending if it's a conlang or a mashup of cultures, I try to keep a formula to what I do, but usually I search for evocative words, if I make something lovecraftian, I consult a "wordcount" database of lovecrafts most commonly used adjectives, a glossary of what may be described "lovecraftian" and then I get to work with these pieces of the puzzle, now ofcourse I like to cut corners on these "puzzle pieces" and end up with a "collage" but I always make sure to lay out the rules before I go about breaking them.