forum Ideas on how to name a place.

Started February 27, 2019 by Tess Woodhouse

tune

Help name places, please!

In a lot of places, they add the word for "land", "town", "village" or something in their language at the back of a name
(e.g. -ville, -berg, -grad,)

Thanks so much!!

You could use a word that describes your location (for example, you might use "safe" or "sanctuary" or something along those lines to describe a safe haven/city) translated into another language; I've done this before and it usually makes for a good name, especially if the language you choose has some connection to your location. I also like to use the "Acronym Technique" from that one Tumblr post. Basically, just write out a brief description of the place, take out most of the letters from the words until you're left with an acronym, then play around with different letters/sounds until you're happy with the name. So for example, if you were looking for a name for, say, a mansion at the bottom of a valley, you'd write out The Mansion In The Valley, which could become something like Th Ma I T Val. You've got a basic outline of a word now; from there you could make it something like "Tamatvale House" or take out more letters and make it something along the lines of "Tamaial Manor". This turned out a bit longer than I'd planned but I hope it helps :)

That's so helpful! What I normally do is go to a kingdom or place-name generator, and scroll through the names. After I've found ones that are okay or that I like, I use those as inspiration for my own original names. Well, not totally original, but it's close. I also like to use old names of places (Europe, Amsterdam, etc) and change the spelling so that they look funkier or more exciting. The translator idea also is helpful if you're stuck.

I second using place name generators. They can come up with some really great names fantasynamegeneratos has some pretty good ones.

Another thing that sometimes works for me is to take names of real places and just combining them. There's a city in one of my worlds that's called Kanshali. It's actually just a mix of 3 African capitals.

I love the acronym method! it always results in very unique names! translation is also good. however, don't rule out a combo of the two, or combinations of any other methods

I enjoy describing my location on google translate, changing it to latin and merging the words. For example, one of my locations is called IgniluteR which originally meant: dry land, wet land.

What I found worked was combining some descriptor or related words and slowly cutting out unneeded vowels and consonants until it made a name for my place.

Depends on what kind of story you're writing. If it's fantasy, go with something along the lines of (Land, Ville, Town). Or, if you write realistic fiction like I do, find inspiration in real cities and towns. That's always helped me. Hope this helps!

try using https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/name/#type=aw, it's made my life so much easier and there are so many different settings!

to be honest I just type random letters, add vowels tune it up a bit and viola! Names of places!

try some translators or name generators, maybe think of a word that describes the place, and find synonyms or translate it to another language. latin is always a good start!