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Thread: Evocative names for real nations
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2017-09-25, 09:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
While I agree with he premise of your posts (as a lurker), this sort stuff really doesn't help endear anyone to your point (or you).
At OP: maybe you ought to just read up on some history of the locations you're trying to emulate? That way you can decide exactly *how* alternate history you are gonna be, by being informed about these places' history. While you decide where he deviations occur, you can start to craft an idea of what people from the home of the PCs call each nation. Also, it might be fun, history is surprisingly interesting.
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2017-09-25, 11:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
My personal favorite US-knockoff country name is "Federal Unites". It lets you write 'FU' on everything, and here in the states the moment we hear the world 'Federal', we immediately think about the US government.
You could try something like 'Unified Atlantic States'. The acronym (UAS) is close enough. And if you want to simplify the world map somewhat, it also lets you roll up a few other countries in there (i.e. canada, mexico, cuba, other Caribbean islands).Last edited by Slipperychicken; 2017-09-25 at 11:54 AM.
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2017-09-25, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
You're not reading the linked articles then? There's a bunch of articles there about why the Caribbean islands have the names they now do - from which you can extrapolate new new that fit those conventions - and alternative names that have been historically used.
My point is that the names we use now come from somewhere, and only by understanding that can we make new evocative names that make sense.
You can't just pluck some sounds out the air and you can't just use the name of some part of the country as the whole name without dealing with WHY that's happened. It'd be like call the whole USA "New England" - it ignores the rest of the history of the other parts. Maybe the counterfactual history includes the British Empire expanding continuously into the continent - but this is an alternate history you're going to have to deal with when you create a name like that, as others in this thread have already pointed out.
Now, as for examples, let's see - Caribbean: Puerto Nova, The Majestic Islands, Kalinago
- Netherlands: Lowlands, Platland
- England: Anglia, The Mercian Empire (Mercia held out against the Danes instead of Wessex)
- France: Gaulle, Grande Aquitaine (the Hundred Years War ending significantly differently)
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2017-09-25, 12:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Poitescme (pronounced "pwah tehm") is a mythological region in the south of France. They're often at war with the Saracens, a golden age Moslem empire.
If it's not obvious, insert a after my post.
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2017-09-25, 02:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Unless your a UK citizen, England and UK are essentially synonymous, even though they aren't.
Again, please don't use the "-stan" ending for a non-Persian-based place. Same reasons as above, really.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/-stan
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2017-09-25, 04:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
So let's call Canada the USA and Japan a part of China, right? There have been wars over these differences - discussions of which would be against forum rules.
Just because it's a common mistake doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out. It's insulting to the overlooked nations, it shows you don't care.
And -stan is a Farsi (Persian) suffix, so it'd only really be appropriate for a pseudo-Caribbean location if it was Persians who discovered and colonised it. Which would be fine if that was the plan, but from the OP, it seemed like they were after a fairly vanilla piratical adventure setting.Last edited by Bogwoppit; 2017-09-25 at 04:13 PM. Reason: Spelling, grammar
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2017-09-25, 05:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Since there is a lot of mess about what should be culturally and historically appropriate for this 'reworked' Planet Earth, maybe BlacKnight should give us more details about it so we can come out with better ideas.
For example, if Jews had a larger part in the culture of this world, Ashkenaz could be a good name for Germany, and Sepharad for Spain.Awards and prices
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2017-09-25, 05:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-25, 05:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-25, 07:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
You'd think that people who roleplay about fighting trolls would know better than to feed them...
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2017-09-25, 07:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
I want to second the early suggestion of looking at 7th Sea and how they're reworked Europe to fit their fantasy world of Thea. The nations/countries in 7th Sea are *clearly* not-Spain, not-Germany, not-Italy, etc, but they did a lot of interesting fluffing around them too to also make them interesting.
I haven't finished reading the book yet, but it is very well-written and it seems they did a lot of work in world-building.
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2017-09-26, 10:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Depends on the alt-history, really, and the . I do love how the most recent MTG expansion had their conquistador-equivalents be vampires, for example, as a gentle poke towards "Sun Kingdoms" of Western Europe.
You can also mix and match territories. For example, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxemborg & The Netherlands could all be a single empire called Gaul, or Gallia, or variations thereof. The Caribbean islands could have already been settled, be called something like "New Phoenicia".
Heck, you could have your alt-history be that Rome expanded via boats instead of via roads, so you could simply apply various Roman terms to the islands of the faux-Caribbean, and go from there.
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2017-09-26, 02:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Thanks for the answers !
The 7th Sea setting is exactly what I was searching for. Altough it seems to concentrate too much on not-Europe instead of not-Caribbean. But it's very valuable.
I understand the linguistic and historical problem, but really my campaign is not something so refined. It's just a pulp setting for having a little fun. So if names aren't exactly correct or there is no plausible history for them... it doesn't matter. My players won't notice and I don't want to waste time on useless stuff.
That said I think the Netherlands is going to be the Seven Provinces, while France and Spain has to struggle for having the "Sun" in their name... so I'm deciding which is better between Gaul and Aragon. Having Spain and Italy fused is another interesting possibility.
For the Caribbean I'm probably going to just change a little the real names (maybe I could switch the languages, so that Puerto Rico is Port Riche or Rijke Poort). But also having some roman or greek names would add an unique flavour to the setting. And it would also provide an excuse for a precursor civilization or something like that.
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2017-09-26, 05:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-28, 05:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Last edited by Fyraltari; 2017-09-28 at 05:23 AM.
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2017-09-28, 11:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
As I recall there's a 7th Sea expansion that covers pirates, and its own pseudo-Caribbean.
I understand the linguistic and historical problem, but really my campaign is not something so refined. It's just a pulp setting for having a little fun. So if names aren't exactly correct or there is no plausible history for them... it doesn't matter. My players won't notice and I don't want to waste time on useless stuff.
That said I think the Netherlands is going to be the Seven Provinces, while France and Spain has to struggle for having the "Sun" in their name... so I'm deciding which is better between Gaul and Aragon. Having Spain and Italy fused is another interesting possibility.
For the Caribbean I'm probably going to just change a little the real names (maybe I could switch the languages, so that Puerto Rico is Port Riche or Rijke Poort). But also having some roman or greek names would add an unique flavour to the setting. And it would also provide an excuse for a precursor civilization or something like that.
Other thoughts:
Europe: Europa, not original but it sounds old timey
British Isles: Albion
Ireland: Éire (actual name in Irish Gaelic)
France: Gallia (or Wiwi if you go Maori, derived from how the French say "yes, yes")
Netherlands/Holland: Hulandes (derivative of the name in a local language)
Canada: Acadia
USA: Columbia
Germany: Alemannia
Iceland: ThuleLast edited by Beleriphon; 2017-09-28 at 12:55 PM.
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2017-09-28, 02:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
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2017-09-28, 04:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
For extra fun, refer to the Netherlands by the name of another province (Holland is one, what are the other eleven?). For example, Zeeland (yes, what New Zealand is named for), Friesland (Frisia, people are famously tall here), or Drenthe (a lot of heath, some peat bogs--this would be more of an in-joke, because this only had about 20 000 inhabitants in the early 18th century, and no right to vote within the Union).
Last edited by ExLibrisMortis; 2017-09-29 at 11:54 AM.
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2017-09-28, 07:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-29, 02:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
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2017-09-29, 02:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-29, 04:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
But since your idea of 'doing the right thing' is not committing such crimes as re-stickering England as 'Albion' and Scotland as 'Orkney' in a private tabletop RPG session, it's an absurdly trivial, nitpicking concern that any normal person would consider a non-issue.
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2017-09-29, 06:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
If you want your players to hate your names, name the Netherlands "Grachten". It doesn't have any links to historical names (a gracht is a canal or a moat inside or around a city, distinct from the word kanaal (canal, in the case of the British one also channel) and sloot (ditch, either continually or very regularly containing large amounts of water)), but it's one of the most Dutch word to pronounce imaginable and since we do have a place called Drachten Grachten sounds like it could easily be a real geographical name.
No, I don't know why nobody in your setting invented an English name for the place.
Batavia is also pretty acceptable, it's one of those historical terms that started long enough ago and has been used often enough that nobody can really object to it on the grounds of it being only part of the country and stuff like that. Do note that in the real world Jakarta in Indonesia was called Batavia during the Dutch reign there, try not to confuse your players with that.
For Belgium just Belgica would work. Terms like Brabantia, Flandria, Wallonia are all loaded terms when playing with some actual Belgians, but if you don't have any each of those if usable.Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2017-09-29 at 06:27 AM.
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2017-09-29, 11:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
We're not supposed to discuss political current affairs here, so I'll just suggest you go look elsewhere for the historical and present day objections to the Scots and Welsh being conflated with / ruled by the English.
As for "Orkney" being acceptable - the word includes an element meaning island, so it's just plain wrong unless you re-do your pseudo-Scotland as an island.
There are of course other name suggestions that have come up here that I've also pointed out problems with, but you're only interested in picking on the ones you think after silliest - because you don't seem to give a damn about respect for minorities and their cultures.
Lastly, I started offering comments about how names for places might be offensive with the word "Please". You insist on privacy as a defence. You can go ahead and say any offensive, insensitve, dismissive crap in your own home.Last edited by Bogwoppit; 2017-09-29 at 11:54 AM.
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2017-09-29, 11:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
Insofar the etymology is at all relevant (which it isn't), that's easily solved. The early settlers of Scotland either mistook it for an island, or it's the name of all of Britain. Big deal.
'Please' is not in and of itself enough to excuse unconstructive nitpicking.Spoiler: Collectible nice thingsMy incarnate/crusader. A self-healing crowd-control melee build (ECL 8).
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2017-09-29, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
I'm British, of mixed heritage (Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English), and yes, I'd be a bit pissed off if someone named an England-substitute "Albion" - why not use "Avalon", or "Anglia", or something else that is more English, or at least isn't inherently British - but I think we're well past the point of the OP now.
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2017-09-29, 01:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-29, 01:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Evocative names for real nations
let's take that one a bit further: france has always (since the merovingians at least) been divided north-south by the tongue they spoke before french. the north was "langue d'oïl" and the south was "langue d'oc" or "languedoc", "oïl" and "oc" were the ways people said "yes". so, there's some food for thought in that tidbit of info. being from an area in the current languedoc, i'd be pretty chauvinistic in saying "name your ersatz france that". but i'll do it anyway. "france" is named that simply because it was the kingdom of the tribe that prospered there, ie, the franks. it was gaul, could have been the merovingian kingdom, was the carolingian empire, then they settled on france because remembering the different royal lineages is a pain even for me, a french historian specialized in medieval history.
and, because i can't resist feeding the trolls,
Originally Posted by bogwoppit
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2017-09-29, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-09-29, 02:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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