So I have a bit of an issue with worlds that are purely fiction....

[Naruzeldamaster]

Worlds that are largely based on 'reality' (like my current project) are fine, I can just use real world cities etc and add the fictional stuff as needed.
I realize now that I'm incredibly lazy sometimes with naming fictional countries/planets.
My go to method is look up x or y significant thing in that country (say an Oasis) and use the translated word for that thing in the language of the region it takes the most inspiration from.

This technique has it's uses, even with characters, but sometimes I feel like I am using it a bit too much, especially with google translate being one of my few resources for translating from english into other languages.

The other method I use is a random name generator which....works, especially for characters, but also feels uninteresting.

 

[Azul-din]

It is, admittedly, a balancing act when you try to construct a totally alien world. My present project started out as a short story and expanding it into a novel meant solving all sorts of problems as well as creating new ones. For example, I mentioned at one point that my imaginary kingdom had an upper town where all the nobles lived, and a 'Lower Town' where the artisans, craftsmen and assorted commoners lived. Then it came about that the queen of these people (they are anthropomorphic cats) wanted to know what life was like in Lower Town. This is what evolved: ( they are using names from the human world. Their true names are Ys-may and Zar-vee


'Yes, you people from the High Houses weren't exactly welcome,' Amy said reflectively, dropping into the speech of the Homeworld. 'Thinking you could go into a place and do what you like to the people there. You had your own laws for yourselves, the Queen and the High Houses, but they didn't apply to us.'

'That's not true!' Sylvie objected hotly, 'The Queen rules over everyone equally, the way Mother did, and when I go back I intend to do the same!'

Amy shook her head. 'Let's assume for the moment that you survive long enough to go back,' she said. ' Or here's a better way to explain the way things are there. Imagine that you were born in an Artisan's household in Lower Town. One of, say, five children. Now, every occupation has its Guild, people who make the rules. You have to be born into a Guild, you can't just decide, well my family are butchers but I would rather be a builder. You have to be born into that particular Guild. So, let's say your parents pick one of you five to carry on the family business. What happens to the other four?'

Sylvie licked the grease from one talon to give herself time to think. 'I suppose they help out,' she said finally.

'Help out?' Amy's eyes narrowed., 'you mean spend your life working for your brother or sister? Or maybe you can't stomach that? You can hire out to one of the Great Houses as a servant ,of course. 'Yes, my lord, no my lord, of course I don't mind if you lift my tail when no one's looking, my Lord...' Amy bared her stubs of fangs and hissed with contempt.

Sylvie recoiled from her intensity. 'There must be other things you could do...' she began tentatively.

'If you want a life of your own? Why, of course, you can turn thief.' Amy's voice was bitterly mocking. 'Dangerous work of course. Or hire out as an assassin. Someone in the Great Houses is always trying to get rid of a rival. No guild for those occupations although I suppose someday someone will invent one.'

'And then of course, there's always the possibility of being caught,' Amy spat before Sylvie had a chance to answer, 'and turned over to the Silent Sisters, to be maimed and sent here, unable to return. That's life in Lower Town, your majesty, try putting that in your precious book...'

Amy jerked herself to her feet and strode over to the windows, her hands clenched into fists. Sylvie heard distinctly the soft pattering sounds as the red nail covers popped off both sets of talons and decided to stay where she was.

'Of course I want to tell a story,' Sylvie said quietly after a moment, 'But if I hadn't come here I would never had learned the truth about our world and what kind of queen would I be then?'

Amy turned from the window, her eyes bright with unshed tears. 'What could you do, even as queen, against the Elders? Against the Sisters? Against the whole rotten system?'

' I believe the young people of the High Houses would rally behind me. What of those in Lower Town? Suppose change was possible?'

'You'd have to go a long way to convince them of that,' Amy replied cynically.

 

[Queshire]

Naming things suck. It's one of the aspects of writing that I struggle with most. One thing that I would recommend is to look at census data for the countries whose language you're pulling the name from in order to get a feel for what kinda stuff is actually used as a name. Something like Bubba Maximilian Eisenhower would, technically, work as an English name, but looks ridiculous to a native speaker. With a random name generator you can wind up with something similar in another language.

 

[Rexenm]

My names are embarrassing. The places are better, perhaps. I cannot figure out why I should not have a naked canvass illustrate exactly what I want of it. But I suppose we are talking of language - and symbols have power.

So, let's say your parents pick one of you five to carry on the family business. What happens to the other four?'

Curiouser and Curiouser.

 

[pmmg]

While I claim no special gift for this, my method is one trying to create a regional sound for an area, and then expand from there.

As an example might be, a region that is loosely based on Finnish sounding name, with letters O R V being dominant in the country. So I might get names like Vora, Orvie, Jorvo, and Vrusa. Once I have a few names, I start expand while trying to keep the look and feel somewhat consistent. (I also consider in this time period, and integration with the rest of the world. In a more integrated world, there might be more crossover.)


For place name, I try to consider the history, and who would have named it, as many place are older than the cultures currently occupying them. So, there might be place names that dont match the dominant culture....which usually means I might have to answer why, but, I am okay with that.

For me, I am comfortable with this system, and sometimes use name generators to some ideas. I do try to use names that dont appear in other places.

My current story world does not have a name for the planet. Its likely the many cultures would not agree on it, and possibly are unaware that a planet is a thing.

 

[Finchbearer]

I feel like the name Bubba Maximilian Eisenhower definitely belongs to some old money East coast American somewhere…

JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien are great examples of authors who have created names that have distinctly British feel, the two most obvious being Bilbo Baggins (of Bag End) and Harry Potter.

You can take a culture as a starting point and go from there, rather than using fantasy name generators look at real names of real places and people. Alter the spelling slightly and check if anyone else has used them, and imo… you’re good to go.

 

[Prince of Spires]

The funny thing with names is that writers usually try to be a lot more creative than real-world people have been. In the real world, places have often simply been named after some landscape feature. Or they were named after some landscape feature in the language of the people who previously lived there, and then something got added to it later. It's how we've ended up with that hill in the UK which, if you translate all parts of the name to modern english means hill-hill-hill-hill (though that's been partially debunked at some point). Or the river Avon, where Avon simply means river in Celtic, so you have the river river...

Or if you look at the Netherlands, many places have been named after the river they sit next to, and you get Maastricht, Maaseik, Maassluis. Or places like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which were named after the fact that there was a dam there on the rivers Amstel and Rotte. Same in English with all the place names ending in -ford.

So feel free to be as unoriginal in your place names as you want. And just name stuff after other stuff, and have a river river.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

The funny thing with names is that writers usually try to be a lot more creative than real-world people have been. In the real world, places have often simply been named after some landscape feature. Or they were named after some landscape feature in the language of the people who previously lived there, and then something got added to it later. It's how we've ended up with that hill in the UK which, if you translate all parts of the name to modern english means hill-hill-hill-hill (though that's been partially debunked at some point). Or the river Avon, where Avon simply means river in Celtic, so you have the river river...

Or if you look at the Netherlands, many places have been named after the river they sit next to, and you get Maastricht, Maaseik, Maassluis. Or places like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which were named after the fact that there was a dam there on the rivers Amstel and Rotte. Same in English with all the place names ending in -ford.

So feel free to be as unoriginal in your place names as you want. And just name stuff after other stuff, and have a river river.

I don't mind being unoriginal, but I feel like with the more 'fantasy' type realms, there has to be some tiny fantastical spin on it.
One of the nations in a project I'm starting today, it's got a desert nation. But just being a desert nation would be boring. Even if I use the whole 'ships that sail the sand sea' idea, which I am cause the protagonist's name is Sinbad, that's somewhat boring too cause I've seen it done a lot. (it's a fun idea though)

So my thing that I'm doing to make it more original, is that this desert nation's main export (back before the gods separated the nations) is steel. But there are no mountains to speak of so nobody knows where they get their steel from. The secret is the sands of the desert have a similar composition to a material harder than carbon but more shapeable than gold. Even if someone figured out to use the sand, they wouldn't know how to forge the steel itself because the technique uses technology (the rest of the nations are far more magic based) the sand is actually white like snow, so I'm thinking of calling it the Steel Tundra, but, I am undecided of calling it just that in english words or some language that closer fits the culture of the nation. And even then I still need to come up with the other regions/cities in that nation + the nation name itself.

Maybe it's cause I play a lot of video games but like, I like my fantasy world names to have 'real' sounding names, but still clearly a fictional setting.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

One of the big problems in real-world vs. secondary-world fiction is readers get confused by names being similar. That happens in reality-based fiction, too; see War and Peace, but people forgive it easier when it's based on reality, LMAO.

Or hell, for that matter, I ended up using one brother's name for the other brother for a while, confused myself! And that was hard as hell to catch.

The funny thing with names is that writers usually try to be a lot more creative than real-world people have been. In the real world, places have often simply been named after some landscape feature. Or they were named after some landscape feature in the language of the people who previously lived there, and then something got added to it later. It's how we've ended up with that hill in the UK which, if you translate all parts of the name to modern english means hill-hill-hill-hill (though that's been partially debunked at some point). Or the river Avon, where Avon simply means river in Celtic, so you have the river river...

Or if you look at the Netherlands, many places have been named after the river they sit next to, and you get Maastricht, Maaseik, Maassluis. Or places like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which were named after the fact that there was a dam there on the rivers Amstel and Rotte. Same in English with all the place names ending in -ford.

So feel free to be as unoriginal in your place names as you want. And just name stuff after other stuff, and have a river river.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

One of the big problems in real-world vs. secondary-world fiction is readers get confused by names being similar. That happens in reality-based fiction, too; see War and Peace, but people forgive it easier when it's based on reality, LMAO.

Or hell, for that matter, I ended up using one brother's name for the other brother for a while, confused myself! And that was hard as hell to catch.

I think what I'm wanting to accomplish is coming up with names that sound like they exist, even though they obviously don't, if that makes sense?
Like if you read the name of a location in the fictional world in Neverending Story, you can (probably) picture it.
Same if you read the name of the locations in the Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe that take place in the wardrobe world.
Not all fictional location names have that 'feel' and I'm realizing I'm sorta bad at it ._.

 

[Prince of Spires]

One of the big problems in real-world vs. secondary-world fiction is readers get confused by names being similar. That happens in reality-based fiction, too; see War and Peace, but people forgive it easier when it's based on reality, LMAO.

It definitely is. Secondary worlds need to work a lot harder than the real world to appear real. And ironically you do that by not being real at all. If you go for a medieval setting, and you want to stick to the real world as much as possible, then chances are half your characters share their name with someone else, and few people have a last name, and you'll confuse the hell out of your readers.

In the real world you can get away with all sorts of stuff that would make people complain about it being unrealistic in a secondary world setting. Just look at all the ridiculous stuff the romans got up to.

My point was mainly that naming an oasis Oasis (or doing so in a different language) is perfectly acceptable as a naming convention for me. Especially if it's a minor location in a story. Not everything has to have a meaning which brings together thousands of years of prophecy and connects with your protagonist on a personal level.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Totally agree, but my brain is built on tangents, heh heh. I always joke that if I ever get around to writing a fight scene I witnessed in real life, that a lot of people would snort and call it unrealistic. All the little details, from Chippendale dancers to street thugs looking for a guy called the Red Dragon and a cop sitting 300 feet away behind a convenience store, and, and... yeah. If I hadn't been there, it would seem unreal.

It definitely is. Secondary worlds need to work a lot harder than the real world to appear real. And ironically you do that by not being real at all. If you go for a medieval setting, and you want to stick to the real world as much as possible, then chances are half your characters share their name with someone else, and few people have a last name, and you'll confuse the hell out of your readers.

In the real world you can get away with all sorts of stuff that would make people complain about it being unrealistic in a secondary world setting. Just look at all the ridiculous stuff the romans got up to.

My point was mainly that naming an oasis Oasis (or doing so in a different language) is perfectly acceptable as a naming convention for me. Especially if it's a minor location in a story. Not everything has to have a meaning which brings together thousands of years of prophecy and connects with your protagonist on a personal level.

 

[Malik]

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

[Demesnedenoir]

You conlangers are in deep caca. I'm only waist deep as I only name places and come up with some phrases and basic grammar without a complete language.

And I have to drop this because a day is always better when you can insert a Han Solo quote:

Never tell me the odds.

I'll just leave this here . . .

 

[pmmg]

I'll just leave this here . . .

I get what this is saying, but I don't think I can really go for it.

I could change the labels to 'probability book will suck' and 'number of years spent learning the craft.'

If I could weed out the books by those without much skill, I bet that graph could show that skilled authors can make up words and still produce quality.

In other words, its measuring the wrong quality.

 

[Fyri]

If I could weed out the books by those without much skill, I bet that graph could show that skilled authors can make up words and still produce quality.

This is important to keep in mind. I believe any story idea/craft style can be awful or amazing, depending on the author's ability to write it. My friend hated first person, present tense stories, until she enjoyed Hunger Games and later realized it was exactly that. A thing is considered bad until someone does it well, I think.

Something else to keep in mind:
Tolkien created an entire language family and still let the most prominent, doom-filled mountain be referred to as Mt. Doom in the main text.

In reality we have the Rio Grande (Big River) and Chad (country in Africa whose name means "lake"). In the USA, states, counties, streets—many named after (the usually inaccurate names of) indigenous tribes that don't really even reside there anymore (because, you know, lots of bad stuff that still goes on today against them). Some states are also named after or for people. Maryland (Queen Mary?), Carolina (King Charles), heck America is even named after a person.

I think your place names should simply reflect how you want to treat the language diversity in general. I think it might be jarring if everyone is speaking "English" and then you have a place called "Jiamiisu" that is supposed to be in the same native tongue that everyone is speaking. But if it is from a foreign language, then it can create a more diverse feeling. I'd consider, who are the natives of the land and what language are they speaking? What kind of sounds fit their vibe? You don't even have to have an explanation for what the name means, but if you want one, it can be anything from "Land of plenty" to "I literally saw this really nice rock here and thus I named this place 'Nice Rock' in my language" to "I love my dead child so much that this place shall be named after her so she may live on forever."

Look at how scientists these days name new discoveries. People are creative, meaningful, funny, and lazy all at once.

 

[JBCrowson]

Worlds that are largely based on 'reality' (like my current project) are fine, I can just use real world cities etc and add the fictional stuff as needed.
I realize now that I'm incredibly lazy sometimes with naming fictional countries/planets.
My go to method is look up x or y significant thing in that country (say an Oasis) and use the translated word for that thing in the language of the region it takes the most inspiration from.

This technique has it's uses, even with characters, but sometimes I feel like I am using it a bit too much, especially with google translate being one of my few resources for translating from english into other languages.

The other method I use is a random name generator which....works, especially for characters, but also feels uninteresting.

One of my elder gods is the original dragon queen. I named her Banleheirballscalai which is roughly woman with a tail of scales in Irish. Pretty much everyone calls her the queen or Ban.

Was it a good idea to do that - not sure.

 

[Aldarion]

The funny thing with names is that writers usually try to be a lot more creative than real-world people have been. In the real world, places have often simply been named after some landscape feature. Or they were named after some landscape feature in the language of the people who previously lived there, and then something got added to it later. It's how we've ended up with that hill in the UK which, if you translate all parts of the name to modern english means hill-hill-hill-hill (though that's been partially debunked at some point). Or the river Avon, where Avon simply means river in Celtic, so you have the river river...

That is literally how I came up with some of the names on my world map... if you translate them from Latin, Scottish Celtic and Croatian (languages I used for my "protagonist" country), you end up with stuff like "Old Port", "King's Town", "Green Ford", "Mouth of River Slaughter", "Wide River"... and you have four cities whose name translates to (or rather, was translated from) "White City" or "White Fort" (much like you have "Beograd" in Serbia and "Biograd" in Croatia... both of them mean literally that - "White City". Except "grad" can also mean "fortress" in archaic usage - that was literally original meaning, "grad" was a fortified city - so these names also translate to "White Fort". "Vienna" also comes from "Vindobona", which means "White Base" or "White City" in Latin).

 

[Fyri]

One of my elder gods is the original dragon queen. I named her Banleheirballscalai which is roughly woman with a tail of scales in Irish. Pretty much everyone calls her the queen or Ban.

Was it a good idea to do that - not sure.

She's a god. She do what she want. XD

Also, I mean, if Finland can get away with that kind of stuff, why can't fiction? I think it's pretty fun that they call her a nickname.

Also kind of reminds my of the Rikitikitembonosarembocharibariruchipipberrypembo legend. Very. Probably. Misspelled that.

 

[Fyri]

Also kind of reminds my of the Rikitikitembonosarembocharibariruchipipberrypembo legend. Very. Probably. Misspelled that.

Alas. I did.