Faction names for vague game idea (and other things)

[Cpt. Soup]

Hello, for a while I've been thinking of an idea for a game. It's a game I'll describe vaguely as thats roughly how it is for me at this time. A particular prolem I have with this sort of thing is names, I really suck at coming up with names for things.. My absolute inability at naming things depresses me greatly...

Well enough of that! The game itself is a sort of strategy game, in another reality that has the technological and some political approximations of that time between WW 1 and 2. It has elements of WW2's gritty urban and guerrilla warfare, the grueling trench warfare of WW1 and the cheerful colour coded considerations of Napoleonic (18th century? colonial?) warfare!

I've come up with eight vague factions of vaguely equal capabilities and power as well as vague dubious motives for why they're joining this grand war.

My first faction with my favorite name is called Dominion, Which vaguely resembles the British Empire at it's tip top height of colonial power. Dominion's various.... dominions.. are "sovereign" nations in their own right that just happen to answer to the supreme authority of of the resident monarchy of Dominion.

The second faction I lovingly call the Confederacy, it's basically the European Union minus Britain and several eastern nations. all of these little powers have gotten together to guard their interests against Dominion's own obscene march to world domination. The Confederate nations are each ruled over by their own little dictators, all of which popped up around the same time. The premier power within it is a imperial/nazi germanish country that all the other leaders toady to, it's absolute power is reflected by it's influence in the standard Confederate uniform (Stahlhelm's for everyone!).

The third faction you will be unimpressed to learn I call it the Union. If you really can't guess what it is then get the hell out of this thread! Yes it's those rascally soviets, the Union is more then just a russianish nation, it has the beginnings of it's soviet block between itself and the Conferderacy, and has already started to stick it's fingers in a Mongolish place. Naturally Union members all answer to the main party in a kremlinish place, you can't have communism without leaders! Dominion would be the default ally of the Union as of all the other nations, the Union appears to be the most distant from their territories and thus not a priority for invasion.

The Empire would be the next world power within this game. The Empire highly similar to the Japanese Empire during it's expansion in WW2, and is a budding colonial power already. It would have control of an Indonesianish area and other surrounding islands, also Hawaii (que to the surf ninja!). The Empire would also be encroaching on territories of a very large asianish Continent. The Empire would be a default ally of the Confederacy as like the previous alliance, they are far to far aware from each other for a decent invasion.

The next four powers are alittle undecided in the naming department.

The first of these four (the fifth) I currently call the Coalition. The Coalition is an alliance of various nations and warlords in the near and middle east, pseudo-northern Africa and certain territories bordering on European(ish). The Coalition would be quite the garble of nationalities, creeds, and faiths. The main goal holding them all together is to get the sticky fingered empires and powers to the north the hell out of their lands! Yes, colonial powers for some reason have yet to manipulate various sects into attacking each other to ad their lands to their bloated holdings, and so such a bizarre and surreal alliance holds itself together. The soldiers themselves would be decked put in uniforms reminiscent of the Turkish Janissary, and with a very good reason. A certain Turkish(ish) kingdom would have slotted itself quite snugly into the Coalition, becoming a leading member and would naturally hold alot of sway as one of the most developed powers within it.

I have yet to come up with a good name for this Faction and so I currently call it kingdom. Kingdom is an odd name for it as it has no emperor or king or central figure at all. It's composed of various warlords and princlings hailing from all over a vague china-and-surrounding-nations area, and ruled by a sluggish council of such warlords. Kingdom would desretly be trying to survive between the ruthless conquering Empire and the equally unpleasant Union. The Kingdom is the default ally of the Coalition. The two have alot in common as they are both fading powers of older times and and being bent over backwards by every other faction named so far. Our versions of these regions had been turned into freaking playgrounds between allied and axis forces in WW2, and so I'd like to see them in a game where they have a chance a put up something of a fight for themselves then as base pawns for the titans that roamed above them.

Now we come to the americas to what I unoriginally call the Republic. The Republic can be compared very much to the U.S. a major difference is the war for independence was far more recent, and the decedents of Dominion settlers manage to be outnumbered by various indigenous peoples. Naturally The ruling party of the republic is composed primarily of the colonists (as if it could be any other way!). As you'd expect, they are extremely at war with Dominion, especially as the power still has territories on that Continent.

The final faction is one I also have yet to make a name for. With a lack of anything good to call it, I refer to it as the Trust *cringes.* The Trust is a former Colony of certain Confederate nations, and is primarily within an area resembling South America. Much like the republic, the Trust has cast off it's ties to it's overseas master. The Trust is made up of descended Confederate settlers as well as various allied minor empires. The name Trust comes from the odd agreement made between them all of mutual taxation and investment to fund their war for independence. The settled members of this alliance are of course at the fore front of things making sure their can squeeze out every dollop of gold they can get at out this arrangement. With similar goals and situations it's only natural that the Republic and Trust are default allies until they're no filthy colonials left to butcher.

And that vaguely sums up all my factions, the Trust and the Kingdom are the only ones that I'm seriously looking for help in the naming of. I also crave opinions and advise about what I've already laid out and changes you'd suggest about about my collection of vicious and greedy powers.

[Flame of Anor]

Sounds cool! What kind of game? RPG? Wargame? Computer (do you haz got mad programming skilz)?

[Rutskarn]

Eyyyy, it's the Soup! Where you been, manwomanthing?

[chiasaur11]

Eyyyy, it's the Soup! Where you been, manwomanthing?

Being the only watchable thing on E! ?

[Cpt. Soup]

Me? I am the greatest programmer that ever lived but I swore an oath to my dying mother that I would never make use of my amazing skills as she happened to glance upon some of my early work and consequently went blind before she died.

So if anything it would be a tabletop rpg/wargame game or more likely stay a loose ambition withering away in my head as the years go on. I'm rather lazy so I'd probably gut afew other games for their systems and stitch it all together into a stomach churning abomination that I shall name as my son.

Much of my life between leaving the forum and yesterday is a dull haze, I remember being very busy and then not so busy and then very very bored and then I found myself here again. Many a night I watched a smug Joel McHale mocking Miley Cyrus and other celebrities and things that feature slightly less prominently. I was going to say they totally stole my name but they made the show in 2004 so I'm just going to keep saying it.

[Berserk Monk]

Just do it like mad libs:

(adjective) (noun)

For noun, I'd go with weapon or animal and just make it associated with some aspect of the faction.

[Finn Solomon]

The Kingdom sounds like a pre-unified China, Romance of the Three Kingdoms style. Since it's made up of city-states and minor kingdoms banding together, you could call it the August Alliance of the Eastern Kingdoms, something along those lines. The Trust could be called The Commonwealth instead, as their focus is primarily economical.

[Tharivol123]

One suggestion I would make is adding something more descriptive to the title of each faction. As an example, rather than just calling it the Dominion, call it the Dominion of {insert nation/person/ideal}. I also don't know how close you want to keep it to real life and how much you want to change, such as making religion an organizing theme in an area where it historically wasn't. Just off the top of my head:
The Coalition could be: The Mid-east Coalition, The Independence Coalition, etc..
For Kingdom: United Kingdoms of [blank] (United Arab Emirates as a real world example).
Republic: A simple Republic of [made up name] should suffice
As for Trust: I agree with Finn on Commonwealth instead, but like the name "Commonwealth of The Free States." It plays off the economical nature of their association with the commonwealth name, plus it serves as a constant reminder to its citizens what their main purpose is and that freedom has not always been theirs.

[Cpt. Soup]

The reason why I prefer these simplistic one word titles is that it has a certain power in it. Take starwars for an example in the original trilogy I don't think the empire was ever referred to as the "galactic empire" in it at all, when you day empire there's only one thing they could be referring to.

A prime reference to show the angle I'm leaning toward is Battlefield Heroes, you have the nation army and the Royal army, there is absolutely no other exposition or depth beyond those two names, the same can be said of team red and blue in TF2.

I did think about using commonwealth for what I now call Dominion, it does look like a good replacement for trust. For Kingdom I originally tried to find a fitting title to do with feudalism, didn't have any luck though.. So I'm dancing between Kingdom and Alliance for the moment, Alliance seems to uplifting though.

[Tharivol123]

Okay, wasn't sure if you wanted to get more verbose or not. Commonwealth is a good trade for Trust. For kingdom, but more negative, try: The Domain (fairly negative), The Lands (neutral), The Realm (neutral), The Monarchies, or (my favorite because its a synonym for Kingdom but nobody will really know what it means) The Suzerainty.
All it really means is you looked up a fancy word for a feudal system (a suzerainty is a feudal lord, and the land they control is called a suzerainty). It kinda has a nice foreign feel to it, while also being authentic in naming. The downside is that's more European than Asian sounding, but that could be a result of colonial influences or trying to make themselves more like the other cultures (similar to how Russia adopted the title Tzar in order to be more like Europe and the "Ceasars").
The only downside I see to the current establishment is with the Dominion. While you want it to resemble the British Empire at its height, you have almost everything that was part of the Empire in another faction. Britain, at its height, controlled what makes up the largest portions of The Kingdom, The Coalition, and the entire Republic. All that really leaves the Dominion with is your equivalent of the Bahamas, the Falkland Islands, Canada, and Australia.
One possible rework of it could be that the Dominion USED to have control of those areas, but is in a decline. For a twist you could make them a negative faction by making it out to that they want to regain their old territories.

Other than that, it sounds like a pretty good game and one that would be fun to play.

[Storm Bringer]

Prinicpality is a good fuedalish name.

for others, I'd suggest looking to historical states. take the United Provinces, the early modern Dutch state. the Grand Duchy is another classic (though I can't remeber a historical nation of that name off hand). I always liked the 'Most Serene republic (of Venice)', and I'm sire a couple of the 300 or so city-states in what is now Italy and Germany had intresting names.

[Selrahc]

Not quite sure why the Dominion is such an overwhelming threat. With the territory layout the way it is the dominion actually seems like the weakest power.

My first faction with my favorite name is called Dominion, Which vaguely resembles the British Empire at it's tip top height of colonial power. Dominion's various.... dominions.. are "sovereign" nations in their own right that just happen to answer to the supreme authority of of the resident monarchy of Dominion.

The British Empire at its peak wasn't really up to much if you remove from its possession the middle east, China, North Africa and seemingly large parts of North America.

I mean what does the Dominion actually own? Australia, parts of Africa and India?

I'd reccomend making the Dominion actually the owners of vast areas of territory that might more reasonably be expected to be held by other powers. Make them vast, powerful but also overextended.

For example, they could be locked into a devastating conflict over "France", with the Dominion dominance there explaining why the coalition has a germanic slant rather than a gallic one.

In asia they could have recently taken over central "China" with vast armies in the offing ready to attempt to win it back.

Have the Coalition being basically an uneasy thrall of the Dominion. France has always had territorial ambitions in the Middle East, so you could say that with the collapse of France the Dominion "liberated" the nations in the coalition, but has taken up strategic bases on economically important areas to help facilitate trade(Or whatever else the Dominion wants to do).

[Cpt. Soup]

Been a bit since I responded, part of the reason was I was thinking about cobbling a quick fix map of my pseudo earth with with colour coded blots of territory, inkscape was rather uncooperative for the task and my other paint program was deleted.

There are some good names for the faction formally known as kingdom, There's Realm which I like, it's a pretty vague label for any land the acknowledges some sort of aristocracy. The Domain just sounds too much like Dominion. The Monarchies sounds awkward to me and doesn't fit well with the other names so far, also Monarchy was another name I thought about for Dominion it sounds just a little too European for this faction. Suzerainty is complex and and an obscure word I've never heard of it before (which is odd because I've been raking through dictionary.com for good names and I've entirely overlooked it till now.) I suspect it will perfectly befuddle anyone that reads it, I'm not sure if I can pronounce it correctly. Principality does seem to fit a nation of princes, but similar to some other names the meaning behind it doesn't leap to mind the very millisecond it's heard. Finally the Lands, which manages to be too absurdly vague even for me. I also have a name I have since come up with, something that gives the faction formally known as kingdom it's own flavor, The Dynasty. It struck me right out of the blue one day, coincidentally I was also playing Dynasty Warriors 4, I am so creative. Because I am selfish and egotistical I'm going to call it this for the time being.

With the naming temporarily out of the way I notice some posters are trying to corrupt me with with suggestions of back story! So far this is a loose idea for a loose game. I really mean it when l when I say loose as there's just going to be a vague setting with a number of vague factions with vague names describing their own unique little infrastructures, all with vague justifications and/or goals for participating in a vague global war.

Another reason for the simple naming theme is that it serves as a general word to staple to anything of the faction, ie: Imperial tank, Imperial assault, Imperial scum! The names so far have a real neutral quality in that they can used in a derogatory sort of way or more positively. I wondered to myself some time before about what the nazis called the Allies. It's altogether a too positive word to be said disdainfully with much success.

I have also noticed that I've implied that the Dominion is an overwhelming menace in the world, That isn't really my intention (but it can be yours!), no side in particular is intended to be weak or powerful, I just mentioned Dominion more then any other faction because I'm probably a huge Anglophile (I totally looked that word up) and subconsciously feel Britain is superior everything else in every way possible.

Dominion would have control of great globs of territory all over, there's India(ish) and a generous amount of Southern Africa(ish) The middleast and northern Africa(ish) is squabbled over by the Confederacy and the Union so Dominion has little to contend with besides the Coalition in those areas. The continents resembling Australia and North America(a noticeable slice of it still at least) are also Dominion territory. Although they are far and wide but are insular and can powers in their own right.

Now I don't really want to establish to much of a history to things, this war could have just begun, perhaps the various sides had long established trenches and battle lines for years but through various checks and balances were unwilling to apply themselves to actual invasion without making themselves vulnerable. Any side could be whatever you'd want it to be. Boarders and boundaries are just lines to be moved and shifted as one sees fit. Even the names are just political ideologies and systems that could be easily stapled to any other faction, it's more like a suggestion with a short description to start you thinking.