Hello everyone, I would like to get some feedback about something I've been unsure about for quite a while now.
I'm sure any of you who've developed your own worlds know that naming places can be challenging. My own fantasy world is meant to be more realistic and closer to realistic scale than most fantasy worlds are... which means I have to come up with literally hundreds of place names.
So, I actually have two questions I guess, though they're closely related.
1. What is your opinion on reusing/recycling some obscure place names from other works of fantasy, to use for your own towns and villages? Personally, I wouldn't really see this as copyright infringement since you're not actually taking anyone's ideas, but simply a word they may or may not have made up themselves. I think fair use would apply here. I'm no lawyer but I would doubt that most words themselves can be copyrighted or trademarked anyway. I imagine though, the more popular or well known the made up word/name is, the more controversial this sort of practice may become then...
For example, if I were to use the name "Baramus" for a town in a fantasy story I wanted to publish and sell, does anyone think I would encounter problems with this? By the way, "Baramus" is the name of a town in a certain RPG... or the English translation of its name at least.
2. My second question is a bit more specific. To make a long story short, one of the countries in my fantasy world is named "Tyria". I named it this several years ago, I actually made up the name from the name of a D&D deity. I also since discovered that "Tyria" is the name of a river and a village in Greece, so I would think that would make it public domain.
My problem is, I discovered a few months ago that a popular online game franchise named Guild Wars uses this name as the name of their world, basically. So, I'm not really sure what I should do. I've tried to come up with different names for this kingdom I named Tyria years ago but its proven to be very difficult and after brainstorming for some months over it, I've arrived at the conclusion that I really don't want to change the name.
My biggest concern is if the new Guild Wars 2 online game becomes wildly successful, like World of Warcraft, I may be forced to change the name, even if its perfectly legal to use it, simply because it will become so well known and type casted in pop culture as belonging to the Guild Wars franchise, no one would be able to take my stories seriously if that name appeared in them.
Feedback, suggestions and advice for both of these questions would be very much appreciated.
Thank you for your time!
~Paladin~
I'm sure any of you who've developed your own worlds know that naming places can be challenging. My own fantasy world is meant to be more realistic and closer to realistic scale than most fantasy worlds are... which means I have to come up with literally hundreds of place names.
So, I actually have two questions I guess, though they're closely related.
1. What is your opinion on reusing/recycling some obscure place names from other works of fantasy, to use for your own towns and villages? Personally, I wouldn't really see this as copyright infringement since you're not actually taking anyone's ideas, but simply a word they may or may not have made up themselves. I think fair use would apply here. I'm no lawyer but I would doubt that most words themselves can be copyrighted or trademarked anyway. I imagine though, the more popular or well known the made up word/name is, the more controversial this sort of practice may become then...
For example, if I were to use the name "Baramus" for a town in a fantasy story I wanted to publish and sell, does anyone think I would encounter problems with this? By the way, "Baramus" is the name of a town in a certain RPG... or the English translation of its name at least.
2. My second question is a bit more specific. To make a long story short, one of the countries in my fantasy world is named "Tyria". I named it this several years ago, I actually made up the name from the name of a D&D deity. I also since discovered that "Tyria" is the name of a river and a village in Greece, so I would think that would make it public domain.
My problem is, I discovered a few months ago that a popular online game franchise named Guild Wars uses this name as the name of their world, basically. So, I'm not really sure what I should do. I've tried to come up with different names for this kingdom I named Tyria years ago but its proven to be very difficult and after brainstorming for some months over it, I've arrived at the conclusion that I really don't want to change the name.
My biggest concern is if the new Guild Wars 2 online game becomes wildly successful, like World of Warcraft, I may be forced to change the name, even if its perfectly legal to use it, simply because it will become so well known and type casted in pop culture as belonging to the Guild Wars franchise, no one would be able to take my stories seriously if that name appeared in them.
Feedback, suggestions and advice for both of these questions would be very much appreciated.
Thank you for your time!
~Paladin~