• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

need a name for a continent

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
Okay so I have a continent with about 5 different regions/ kingdoms on it. I named the kingdoms and regions and love it just as it is, but I have changed the name of the continent twice and still hate it. I am currently calling it Hadrule, but I realized that sounds like Link's Hyrule, and now I need a new name. Something simple would be better, nondescript but that sounds nice. Any suggestions?
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Well, what are the names of the other continents? What are the names of some cities or towns in the unnamed continent? Are the people on that continent a 'fantasy counterpart culture' of any real world culture?
 

Queshire

Auror
I'm pretty much only suggesting this 'cuz I want to use it in my story, but how about Mu? It's supposed to be a legendary sunken continent, basically the Atlantis of the Pacific.
 

Butterfly

Auror
As it's you... here's a list of continent sounding thingies that I dragged out from my unusable file - unusable because I can't ever imagine myself using them, so if you want any of them, go ahead and take them, or modify them, whatever you want to do with them.

Annalay
Armorea
Arnesse
Attrisea

Cantor

Erest
Etores

Gamroth
Ganisia

Helet

Iness
Irona

Jarat

Kolania

Malita
Mardahar

Onterat

Poracia

Quatora

Ryeka

Segura

Tayness
Tantus
Thessia
Tundal
Tyrancia

Vanlania
Vannarad
 

Mindfire

Istar
Something that I do is name regions after continents or oceans that don't exist anymore. Try some of these on for size:

Gondwana

Laurasia

Pangaea

Oldredia

Rodinia

Nena

Kenorland

Vaalbara

Amasia

Avalonia

Cimmeria

Baltica

Laurentia

Lemuria

Meropis

Kumari

Mirovia

Panthalassa
 

Alex97

Troubadour
When I need a name for something I usualy go on google translate and search related words in languages that resemble the culture I'm writinging about. Combine the a good word you find or change it a bit and somtimes you'll get really good resualts.
 

Butterfly

Auror
Mindfire - Excellent idea!

Have you thought about of looking at the moon? My dad had a great big globe of it once. There are some wicked names up there.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
I'm going to have to consider for a bit, that was an information overload, thanks! I like Onterat. It's hard to name continents because how often do you talk about them? I mean, most people say, "I'm from the US," or, "I'm from Kansas City," but no one says, "I'm from North America."

So my regions are: one big continent which needs a new name. That is broken down into Two southern kingdoms called Goronmark and Eddenmark after the twin brothers who divided the kingdom long ago, a huge southern territory with no king called the Independent Southern Alliance or ISA, The eastern kingdom of Adelmoor, the central mountain kingdom of Rheinguard, and the western kingdom of Andruain. I tried not to pick cultural sounding names, because the people all speak a common language (for my convenience).

So anyways, thanks for the help, I'll think on it some more and see what fits.
 

Queshire

Auror
Frankly the ISA seems like a bit of an odd one out, and it's going to get immediatelly compared to the USA or the EU. If you're ok with that, then fine, but otherwise I'd suggest something more... medieval sounding, perhaps something like the Southern Kingdoms or Southern Territories.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I'm going to have to consider for a bit, that was an information overload, thanks! I like Onterat. It's hard to name continents because how often do you talk about them? I mean, most people say, "I'm from the US," or, "I'm from Kansas City," but no one says, "I'm from North America."

So my regions are: one big continent which needs a new name. That is broken down into Two southern kingdoms called Goronmark and Eddenmark after the twin brothers who divided the kingdom long ago, a huge southern territory with no king called the Independent Southern Alliance or ISA, The eastern kingdom of Adelmoor, the central mountain kingdom of Rheinguard, and the western kingdom of Andruain. I tried not to pick cultural sounding names, because the people all speak a common language (for my convenience).

So anyways, thanks for the help, I'll think on it some more and see what fits.

Frankly the ISA seems like a bit of an odd one out, and it's going to get immediatelly compared to the USA or the EU. If you're ok with that, then fine, but otherwise I'd suggest something more... medieval sounding, perhaps something like the Southern Kingdoms or Southern Territories.

I agree with Queshire on the ISA. It seems a bit... modern. But if you make it slightly more modern or "ahead of its time" than the other nations, maybe with some more advanced steampunk tech or a democratic form of government, then it might work.
 
I'm going to have to consider for a bit, that was an information overload, thanks! I like Onterat. It's hard to name continents because how often do you talk about them? I mean, most people say, "I'm from the US," or, "I'm from Kansas City," but no one says, "I'm from North America."

So my regions are: one big continent which needs a new name. That is broken down into Two southern kingdoms called Goronmark and Eddenmark after the twin brothers who divided the kingdom long ago, a huge southern territory with no king called the Independent Southern Alliance or ISA, The eastern kingdom of Adelmoor, the central mountain kingdom of Rheinguard, and the western kingdom of Andruain. I tried not to pick cultural sounding names, because the people all speak a common language (for my convenience).

So anyways, thanks for the help, I'll think on it some more and see what fits.

I know this isn't what you asked, but I personally would change Goronmark and Eddenmark to Goromark and Eddemark. It is a pretty natural conversion, especially if they are places people are constantly referring to. To me, the second two just flow and sound much better.
 

Caged Maiden

Staff
Article Team
Regarding the ISA, it is an independent territory where each town/ village governs itself with a local council and then regional representatives. no royalty, just land-owners around the territory who raise their own guards who patrol the roads to protect citizens. It's more advanced than the kingdoms, but I'll think about what I'm calling it. :) Maybe I need to look at that name list again, because I don't want to refer to it as a territory, for fear it will sound uncivilized, when in fact, it is wealthy and mostly able to rule itself. Just another quick question. In one of my books, the main big city in the ISA is falling apart, run by criminal organizations, and unable to militarize because soldiers would have to be hired. Does that sound feasible?
 

Mindfire

Istar
Regarding the ISA, it is an independent territory where each town/ village governs itself with a local council and then regional representatives. no royalty, just land-owners around the territory who raise their own guards who patrol the roads to protect citizens. It's more advanced than the kingdoms, but I'll think about what I'm calling it. :) Maybe I need to look at that name list again, because I don't want to refer to it as a territory, for fear it will sound uncivilized, when in fact, it is wealthy and mostly able to rule itself. Just another quick question. In one of my books, the main big city in the ISA is falling apart, run by criminal organizations, and unable to militarize because soldiers would have to be hired. Does that sound feasible?

Only thing that bothers me is that your ISA sounds very loosely organized. Such a decentralized government would make it easy prey for the surrounding nations. It needs stronger leadership.
 
Only thing that bothers me is that your ISA sounds very loosely organized. Such a decentralized government would make it easy prey for the surrounding nations. It needs stronger leadership.

Not necessarily true. The Boeotian League and the Hanseatic league seem pretty similar to what she is after.
 
No problem, they are just two examples from history of successful unions of city-states. The Boeotian league was in Greece led by Thebes, essentially as an alliance of many city-states to protect themselves against the big powers of the time (Athens and Sparta-though not at the same time, mind you. Athenians and Spartans didn't get along too well). The Hanseatic League was a major federation of trade-oriented cities in the late middle ages (i think, it has been a couple years since World History) in the area of modern day Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark. I think the leading cities there were Bruges and Antwerp.
 

Cloud

Minstrel
Another thought: have the current inhabitants always lived there - did they name the continent?

Or were they late arrivals? Did they push out any previous inhabitants? Could they have taken a hand-me-down name from a previous culture?

eg - humans taking over after elves
eg - Europeans invading America

Everywhere has history, and it often lingers in the names.
 

Shockley

Maester
Of course, it's important to note that both the Boetian League and the Hanseatic League (especially the Hanseatic League) eventually got picked apart by other powers.

Older alliances, to join that part of the discussion, tend to have looser names. IE, the afore-mentioned leagues. The Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria and Prussia) and the subsequent Quadruple Alliance and Quintuple Alliance. Other examples would be the Catholic League, Holy Roman Empire, Italian League, Dual Alliance, League of Three Emperors, etc.

Acronym soup is a modern thing.
 
For god's sake don't use anything from history (like Pangaea) unless your story is actually set there...not that there were too many humans running around on Pangaea. You'll just get hassled by nerds and geeks, when you could have taken three seconds to come up with your own name.

Here's a tip to aid creativity...all continents on earth start and end with the same letter. Why not continue that tradition?
 
Top