Fantasy Place Names

Started by Emperor Wilbers, April 07, 2012, 09:51:56 AM

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Emperor Wilbers

I figured that the setting of my RP is going to be in a poor kingdom with poverty and the backbone is a corrupt absolute monarchy. The problem is that I can't find a name to fit this land. I would just call it something like "The Empire" but that's WAY too cliche. The kingdom of D'Hara in my favorite book, The Wizard's First Rule is a great name, but, I can't use that either. Anything you can give me would be great.

PS. I think I'm going to make a pre-game story thing to give a background about what life is like. I found a fantasy name generator but it doesn't have the best "Place" names.

Hasabushi

The thing about place names in fantasy worlds is that they need to follow some sort of similar naming convention. Like if you say
"The Grand Hall of the Ancients" in reference to a ravine that extends for 5 miles out. Then in essence you should do the same depending on the culture, in this case most likely dwarven or something similar.  I would look up the examples of R.A. Salvatore or The Wheel of Time Books, to get a good idea of how this all works.

One thing that I do is similar to how Mr. Salvatore creates his worlds, he creates the race first then the key characters of that race, then he decides what type of land it will be (Barren, icy, fire, etc) and then establishes the type of ruling goverment at that point he decides on a name.

In one of my many created worlds there is a city called Gathalorn that exists in the lands of Eyre (e'ar) the lands of Eyre were inhabited by a might race of men known as The Thorbs. After them came the Eyran'i a race of flying creatures, and so forth and so on.

Anyway I'm assuming that one time the kingdom used to be great, but now due to its non-righteous monarchy the kingdom has fallen into despair and depravity. So from that I would go with something regal yet almost forsaken. Vistoria, Yunder'hein, Wiothlim, Kingdom of Hullden, etc

It also depends on the type of language you want to use, I tend to lean more to the Germanic, Romnic, Viking type styles.

Throndir

I would say just to let your mind run freely. Think of names that sound fantastic.

There's the world of Elodria, which I made in early junior high (also explains why Elodria's my most generic world). Though I did split up the world in regions, so there's enough culture to go around.

For another world I made called Tenai, I started that world from events and groups of people (rather than individuals) and based the world from that.