How do you name places in your world without it sounding like gibberish?

How do you name places in your world without it sounding like gibberish?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle,_Newcastle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_Castle,_Bridgend
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland
omnimap.com/catalog/int/kalimedia.htm
etymonline.com/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

I too would like to know these secrets.

please help, people who know how to name locations

>Figure out what the town/city specializes in.
>Find out the Latin/ Greek word for that
>Use the word "Town" or "City" from a different language.

Yellow river

Space mountain

The white ship

Adj + noun

Name it after real life places that are in the same general area as the fictional setting is standing in for.

For example, let's say your setting is a sort of pseudo-Germany. You pick a random town like Henigdorf and then change a couple of letters until it suits your liking. Sometimes you can just take the name wholesale.

>Without it sounding like gibberish

lol fag

Either more descriptive names in english, or looking up thematic words in other languages, picking one that sounds good, modifying them until they're not entirely recognisable and calling it good.

By mangling real words and names.

Super-profound guy?

He is Sir Frank Profundis.

Space-important-dude?

Max Hawkeson.

Beat-em-up-baddy-girl?

Pagilles Alysse.

1. Choose which society in your setting is the "main" society. This society is the society who gets to "draw the map" - all naming conventions are based off of this groups perceptions, and this groups language structure. If you don't want a hegemonic power that dominates your setting, then you're probably gonna have to make up names in each language for each other society, which is more work - but imo way more cool and in-depth.

2. Pick a rule for each major society. This rule determines how a location is named/what they are named after across a society. Some examples are:
>Geographic Features
>Events
>Heroic Individuals
>Founders
>Location in relation to other parts of society ("Central," Easton,Weston, etc.)
>Concepts (Serenity, Providence, etc.)
>Religious aspects
>Man-made features

3. Societies that are either close friends or mortal foes will often use the native language when referring to each other (i.e. Imperials pronouncing the Orcish capital in Orcish, or as close as their tongues can make it). This is because their intense relationship facilitates cultural exchange - even unwillingly - as the two mingle or observe one another. The Chinese may not be able to pronounce "Guatemala" correctly, but they sure as hell learned how to say "Russia."

4. Bear in mind cultural habits when naming places. If a society prefers long, complex names, grand gestures, elaborate ceremony, or are just generally dramatic, the placenames will be much more elaborate and/or dramatic than the placenames of more stoic societies.

5. Names have power - bad places have bad names, and vice versa. There are some exceptions, but a place named "Shithole" is almost always going to be one.

6. Societies don't necessarily mind using other names in a place in which their rule is absolute, but in frontier territory and/or occupied regions they are going to be far more authoritarian in using their own names for places to further enforce their legitimacy.

For places in the human kingdoms, I just pick two words that describe the place, put them together, then mess it up a little.
So like, say these people are good at fishing, I'll say they're known as "the Anglers". Just to mess it up, I'll change it to Englers, for a little spice. Then the place they settle would be Englers Land, or England for short.
Oh hey would you look at that.

For other races, it becomes a little more creative. Basically you're gonna step foot into building a language.

So first, think of what sounds the language has. Take some English sounds out (maybe they have no sounds where two lips touch?) and add some new ones (maybe they have a second K-like sound further forward in their mouth?).
Decide how words are built. In Japanese, all words go consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (nippon).
Maybe you want Consonant-Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Consonant-Vowel (Skamto). There are websites that will automatically generate words for you. Keep a few regular sounds that come up in common place names, like maybe something like 'Shtek' means town in an orc tongue, and sprinkle that in place names.

Give german names

There are almost countless islands in the pacific that no one ever hears about, like New Caldonia. Take names from those, modify a syllable or two, and no one will know the difference.

Sometimes I will just look around a room and hack up a name out out something. Like "Alumina" from "aluminum".

I'm so fucking autistic I came up with several base phenomes that would be part of a language. Like several syllables, some of which I imagine typically appear at the starts of words, middle, endings, so on, and their associations.
Don't do that though. The actual advice is as long as it rolls of the tongue well enough players don't give a shit

Many place names in the real world sound like gibberish. Except to the natives. Llanfairpwllgwyngyll even looks like gibberish, but is a perfectly normal Welsh place name. And of course you can't forget Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.

name the after songs and lyrics

Pick an obscure language from google translate and be consistent with it.

Semi-exotic names are great for this. For example, my current game has northern kingdoms where I just use German place names. Wolfsburg, Maniz, Jena, Halle, Rostoc, ect. For non-Germans, they don't have strong assosiations but do give the players an instant mental picture of vauge Northern European/Germanicness.

Romanian names get used for the old kingdom in the East, like Florești, Căpușu Mare,Odorheiu Secuiesc, ect. Hearing a place name the players can guess "that's Old Kingdom, not Northerner" but can't identify why.

This. My players are currently running around a section of my world that has a bunch of tOwn names from the La Mancha region of Spain.

Even places that don't sound like gibberish still sound retarded. Shitlingthorpe is a real place. So are Bishop's Itchington, Bitchfield, Flesh Shank, and a whole bunch of other places that sounds like they were named by a middle schooler.

Consistent naming schemes. Glob-shulgur sounds less gibberish when the other places/folk are named similarly, like Gubtrat, Shorjub, etc. Instead of writing entire names, make a list of syllabes to string together into names.

Romanian actually sounds like a solid idea, because the words look weird but it's actually easy to pronounce.

I once ran a sci fi game where players ran errands for an army officer named Major Havock.

You build you own rudimentary sets of logic using syllables that are easy to pronounce and sound like they could be realistic:
Dal=mountain, Til=valley, Mat=coast, Uir=river

Then take phonemes from the real-life culture you're trying to evoke and create compound words:
Dullemdal, Til'caithe, Mat Haill, Naghuir

Step 1. Decide which in-game group/culture/race would name the place
Step 2. Find analogous real-world cultures.
Step 3. Translate words describing your place into that real culture's language and modify it until it sounds good.

Ex. say I have mongol-based orks and I need a name for a large desert they roam over. I go to google translate and throw in words that relate to a desert. I find the Mongolian word for dry is "khuurai", sequential u's look word in english so I change it to khurai and label it The Khurai Desert.

You can use the same trick to name just about anything.

Those orks have a strong-willed warlord? The Mongolian word for a boar is gakhai so name him "Gakhai The Ruthless".

Works best if you stick to languages your party doesn't know.

I usually just make shit up at the last second.
Sentient bomb? Ammo Andy.
Sentient bullet? Colonel Lionel.
Shapshifting familiar? Terry the Temp. He needs a raise.

If you ever get stuck, alliteration and using one letter a lot makes it look like you put more work into it than you did.

>he doesnt name the starting town the Village of Larry

I like to give places names based on obscure in-universe historical events, local plants animals or other such biological entities, name it after a patron saint who'd be relevant to a place like it or praised by it's founders or residents; or naming it after something that holds vague visual similarities like Goose Neck Bend for a trail. Shit like that to flesh out the universe and make it a little deeper. Same thing that's done in real life. Maybe name some grove used by druids Daggerwood (dogwood) Resort. And if you want to be superficially fancy, then use in universe or our universe's languages (I like using extinct or obscure languages, because they vaguely sound familiar to most folks subconsciously), or mix of: a hill monks would hide at or commune traditionally, looks like a hooded monk, has that Tempur or whatever it's called hair cut look on the hill, or a strange hooded figure by legend appears there and the only contemporary relation for peasants would be monks, so it would be named Badermonoc.
What an absolute mess of a post.

Name it after an important historical figure in your campaign
or if it has something important to its geography, then name it after the word for it in your made up language

Puns.

Xanth

I just make of gibberish that kind of fits a cultural theme because if you didn't hear of the names of nations in our world they would sound like gibberish anyways. at least for the most part.

Names are simple.
Names are stupidly simple.
Names are simply stupid.

Got some old ruins lying around? Call them The Old Castle.
Build another castle on the same spot? Easy: The New Castle.
Town spring up around it? Call them Newcastle, after the new Castle.
New Castle getting old and Newcastle needs another, newer castle? Newcastle Castle.
That's not me being flippant, there's two of them:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle,_Newcastle

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_Castle,_Bridgend

Hey, a Fort Wayne user took that. Neat.

Oh and I forgot to add: "gibberish" is just all of the above in another language.

This time we'll work in reverse: Shubenacadie.
Kinda gibberish. 'Acadie' suggests ties to former French colony Acadia.
Indeed the locals will tell you it's from a cute motto: 'chu bien en Acadie! or "all's well in Acadia!"
Turns out it's actually a corruption of the old indian name for the place: Sipekne'katik
Now that's some proper gibberish! Even has the mandatory fantasy name apostrophe, how forward thinking.
But what does it mean? Quite simple, really:
"Wild potatoes grow here"

tl;dr just name all your shit with simple descriptions in Esperanto or whatever.

Random name generators.

I take a look at real places, preferrably in whatever country that uses the same language as I want the names to be inspired by.

Ideally, I have some understanding of the language so you can then take apart the names. Looking at their history, and where they come from. A lot of names are just compounds of descriptions, so in the same style I can then put together names for my own places.

Then, depending on how old the place is within my setting, I think about how the words flow. People tend to simplify or draw together words over the course of the centuries. Then I try to copy that. Usually I just go with what feels right rather than emulate the accurate development of language and words in that step. None of my players are language experts, so it's not like they'd notice.

Granted, this method lends itself more to low fantasy settings rather than high fantasy settings.

For high fantasy settings/places where I might want more fancy names, I try to construct basic rules for a language that named the place.
It's not so much about vocabulary, but rather grammar that gives each name a clear structure, and if I want to go completely overboard, it's own sort of "flow" and "sound", though to make it recognisable and memorable to my players, the consistent structure is the way more important part.

Then I just have to make sure that the result is pronouncable. Here, unless there are fantasy races who can produce sounds that humans can't make (in which case: back to the drawing board or just translate it into mundane rather than using it in-session), I just go by simplifying and drawing together. No name that's unpronouncable will survive for a long time as people just begin to call it by a simplification.

I tried to do a full conlang to solve these issues and my players just thought it was going maximum overnerd. You can't please people.

>use a setting inspired by local folklore and mythology
>also live in the promised land of profane place names
>players end up getting sent to places with names like "horse cunt bog", "dick ridge", or "wank river"

I use beer names for the bigger cities in my campaign.

For the small towns I just mash together two things which can be found in the town's surroundings.

You get names like Urquell or Warsteiner for the bigger cities, and dumb shit like Forestriver or Footmountain for the smaller villages. It works surprisingly well in my campaign.

>You are in the presence of his Majesty Bobby the Third, Prince of Manland and Lord of Bigtown

>Make up a language, more specifically a suffix
>Make up a nice one or two syllable word, add to suffix

>The main language is ENglish
>Some towns have proper english descriptors, some have off-brand germanic, etc etc

Also, be redundant in names to save yourself some trouble.
>Welcome to the Castle Baywatch, in the City of Baywatch, capital of the County of Baywatch, capital county of the Duchy of Baywatch.

Adding onto that, picking a language for an area or culture to keep it consistent.

I use Sicilian for my merchant kingdom, for example. The capital is Citagran, bastardized from cità grande: "big city." The best part is that you're not being unrealistic, you're aping the naming system that everyone used IRL.

L. Ron Hubbard pls go.

Speaking them loud before writting anything.
If I can correctly pronounce it with ease I drop it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland


Always a good resource.

I name all my locations really simple things because I know my players aren't going to remember any of the town names if they're too complicated and I will get pissed if they can't remember the name of the city they've been in for the past 3 sessions. Names like Frontier Town, Seaport, Metropolis, Elfwood are way easier to remember than Yvanol Kingdom, Isles of Kinnet, and other things like that. The players only hear these names once or twice a week so why make it harder for them to remember?

Give it a normal name based on what features it possesses then translate to some other language.
omnimap.com/catalog/int/kalimedia.htm

Because they should be writing shit down.

Its still better for them to remember it of the top of their head and not have to dig through notes.

Use actual names from places around the world and give them a fantasy twist

Thobias townsville
Kingdom of Kramer
Jean Claude river

>go to kingdom of Kramer
>get called a nigger

Nice game.

>get to the castle
>get a pitchfork up your ass and be thrown into the dungeon

I use literary references and puns to build out some things. Rosecranach and Gildedstern are sister towns. They are obvious, but I have other ones that I translate or change the linguistic origins of the name.

Translating and twisting simple phases is great. Take words that relate to the location and change the language. Ignore cognates, and twist it untill it flows.

True facts.

At least in Finland there are places with names like Nahkahousu, literally meaning leather pants, or Kyrvänperä, could be translated to Dick's End. Seriously, if you need a name for a place, if real world has places named like these, you can't go wrong.

Extended browsing sessions on Wiktionary and etymonline.com/ to identify the ancient roots of words, which I then ham-fistedly link together before transforming the resultant word by looking at how words evolved in closely-related languages over the centuries.

Only really works for Germanic languages because while I apply the same process to other language groups, I'm not familiar enough with them to be able to tell if a resultant name sounds authentic or not.