Geographical names

[Lorsa]

I am not used to asking for help, but I figured I would do it in this case to help save time and enery for myself.

I need some help figuring out names to put on a map. That is, names for towns, villages and hamlets. Names for forests, rivers, mountains, hills and whatnot. Basically I am trying to create a world and I need names for the geographical locations.

If you are feeling particularly creative, you can also come up with name suggestions for an adventurer's guild.

[JoeJ]

If you know what culture/language you want your names to sound like, look at a map of that part of the real world. Ignore major cities and other well-known features and focus instead on the names of small towns, villages, rivers, lakes, etc.

[hymer]

I like to take English place name bits and stick them together in what I think is appropriate ways. A village by a river in the forest? Hartford. The only harbor on a stretch of rocky coast? Hardhaven. The terrain that port town sits in? Hard Downs.
It may not be the sound or feel you're going for. If not, consider using a dictionary for a language that has the sound you want. I find that Finnish makes for some interesting sounds that I don't immediately place (though I guess you're a lot mor likely to have players who would place Finnish - maybe try Hungarian or Basque). You can basically pick a word that has something to do with a place and use the translation of that word, perhaps slightly altered (they famously work silver in the Hopeat region, e.g.). It gives you a consistent sound.

As for the name of an adventurers' guild, I'd probably allude to some history. Something like the 'Legion of Seven' (as it was founded by seven survivors from the disastrously fated seventh legion), the 'Nail Swords' (because it was formed in the Rusty Nail tavern), or maybe something alluding to the attitude of the guild (like 'Gold Company' or 'Warhorse Stables').

[jayem]

River wise I quite like the way the Rhine becomes the Rjin. And similarly the way the Brandywine has a confusing duel etymnology.

I think it's Ouse, Avon and Severn that are the british river rivers (I've seen more Avon's in names, but there are 2 Ouses). If you wanted to give the feeling of what it my feel like when newly named, you could perhaps have the Fastwater (or disguised hidden Fasvasa), Deepwater,

Penn Tor-mun-don Hill is apparently not quite as hill-hill-hill-hill as once claimed, but does give 5 prefixes/suffixes for hilly regions.
Combining with henge that gives Penhenge, Hengedon, etc...

[Lorsa]

If you know what culture/language you want your names to sound like, look at a map of that part of the real world. Ignore major cities and other well-known features and focus instead on the names of small towns, villages, rivers, lakes, etc.

I want them to have English names, both with a pseudo-medieval and a fantasy feel. So "Westfield" is perfectly okay as a name, and so is "Goblin Hills".

I like to take English place name bits and stick them together in what I think is appropriate ways. A village by a river in the forest? Hartford. The only harbor on a stretch of rocky coast? Hardhaven. The terrain that port town sits in? Hard Downs.
It may not be the sound or feel you're going for. If not, consider using a dictionary for a language that has the sound you want. I find that Finnish makes for some interesting sounds that I don't immediately place (though I guess you're a lot mor likely to have players who would place Finnish - maybe try Hungarian or Basque). You can basically pick a word that has something to do with a place and use the translation of that word, perhaps slightly altered (they famously work silver in the Hopeat region, e.g.). It gives you a consistent sound.

As for the name of an adventurers' guild, I'd probably allude to some history. Something like the 'Legion of Seven' (as it was founded by seven survivors from the disastrously fated seventh legion), the 'Nail Swords' (because it was formed in the Rusty Nail tavern), or maybe something alluding to the attitude of the guild (like 'Gold Company' or 'Warhorse Stables').

Interestingly enough, I do intend for quite a lot of shores to be rocky, so Hardhaven is a pretty good suggestion. I was thinking one of the few larger cities would be called "Baytown".

Thank you for the link, I'm sure it will come in handy.

I also think some places are named after the person who discovered them or settled them, so I have to take that into account as well.

River wise I quite like the way the Rhine becomes the Rjin. And similarly the way the Brandywine has a confusing duel etymnology.

I think it's Ouse, Avon and Severn that are the british river rivers (I've seen more Avon's in names, but there are 2 Ouses). If you wanted to give the feeling of what it my feel like when newly named, you could perhaps have the Fastwater (or disguised hidden Fasvasa), Deepwater,

Penn Tor-mun-don Hill is apparently not quite as hill-hill-hill-hill as once claimed, but does give 5 prefixes/suffixes for hilly regions.
Combining with henge that gives Penhenge, Hengedon, etc...

I never knew don referred to hills. Good to know!

The area is a continent that is quite newly re-discovered by humans, some centuries after a few terrible wars obliterated all civilization and made everyone avoid the place. So many places have been re-named recently, and as such names like "Fastwater" are perfectly good suggestions.

[Corneel]

Here are some pieces for your puzzle:
List of generic forms in place names in the United Kingdom and Ireland

I've used it in the past and found it quite useful.

[Wraith]

If you know what culture/language you want your names to sound like, look at a map of that part of the real world. Ignore major cities and other well-known features and focus instead on the names of small towns, villages, rivers, lakes, etc.

While good advice, it might not make much sense if you want ACTUAL English place names, rather than just place names pronounced in the English language. We have some pretty illogical ways of naming our towns, since we've had to filter them through Gaelic, Roman and Scandinavian and French occupation, and then there were some pretty radical changes made in the middle ages and later the 19th century reforms.... There's not much of a pattern, is what I'm trying to say

Interestingly enough, I do intend for quite a lot of shores to be rocky, so Hardhaven is a pretty good suggestion. I was thinking one of the few larger cities would be called "Baytown".

[...]

I also think some places are named after the person who discovered them or settled them, so I have to take that into account as well.

In which case, I would like to recommend to you the suffixes of -wich, -ton, -ham, -thorpe and -shire. They're all peculiarly English ways of naming a place.

-wich comes from the old word for wood, as in a small forest. Norwich is the "north forest", Ipswich is "Ip's forest", and so on.
-ton is an old way of shortening 'town', -ham and -thorpe both for 'home' and -shire for an area not unlike what we would now call a district.
For example, the city of Nottingham is the modern way of saying the 6th century place known as "Snott's Home", whereas Nottinghamshire is the area around Nottingham that shares the same local government.

-ton can also be short for 'stone', so if you have a place build on a hill or mountain, it might be named after the person who first discovered or climbed it - "Ilk's Stone" becomes "Ilkeston", for example.

So as a rule of thumb, pick a word, cut off the last two or three letters and add -ton, -wich, -ham, -thorpe or -shire to it and you're probably going to be fine.

So many places have been re-named recently, and as such names like "Fastwater" are perfectly good suggestions.

-mouth is another good one, as in river-mouth. Plenty of places where a river meets the sea have that in their name; Bournemouth, Portsmouth, etc.

[jayem]

I never knew don referred to hills. Good to know!

My fault it's Torpenhow.
Though Huntingdon is apparently the hill of Hunta (London is Lond-on), so maybe I wasn't totally loopy.

Bridge, Ford are obvious suffixes as in either Stamford-bridge.
Thwaite/Dale you get in northern clearing/valley.
Caster/Chester from roman settlements
Borough, a smaller unit than shire (no two places pronounce it the same)

[PhoenixPhyre]

I pull them from reference languages for each culture--each name has a prefix, infix, and suffix with a combiner between each one:

[prefix][combiner][infix][combiner][suffix]

The english ones use elements from these sets:
"Prefixes": [ "aber", "craig", "mont", "" ],
"Infixes": [ "river", "ford", "brad", "carden", "white", "shep", "inver", "nath", "" ],
"Suffixes": [ "avon", "axe", "ay", "y", "beck", "dale", "holm", "lyn" ],
"Combiner" : "" (no space)

So a valid name might be Montbradholm (or something like that). I need to expand those out a bit though.

For other languages I tended to translate simple things like colors, "lake", "river", "mountain", etc into the reference language and use those.

So a welsh-based wood elf town might use

"Prefixes": [],
"Infixes": [ "valkoinen", "musta", "punainen", "sininen", "keltainen", "kulta", "hopea", "kultainen", "hopeinen", "oranssi", "sinipunainen", "vihreae", "harmaa", "ruskea" ],
"Suffixes": [ "vaeri", "metsae", "koti", "virta", "vuori" ],
"Combiner": " "

resulting in a name like Valkoinen Vaeri or Kulta Virta.

[Honest Tiefling]

While good advice, it might not make much sense if you want ACTUAL English place names, rather than just place names pronounced in the English language. We have some pretty illogical ways of naming our towns, since we've had to filter them through Gaelic, Roman and Scandinavian and French occupation, and then there were some pretty radical changes made in the middle ages and later the 19th century reforms.... There's not much of a pattern, is what I'm trying to say

We also name them pretty stupid things. Like naming a state after a fictional character, because why not?

Some sources of stupid names are:

1) The guy who discovered it got to put it onto a map and everyone else just copied it. Why does lake Disappointment or Useless Loop exist? Because the first guy didn't like the place.

2) Local stories or legends. Legendary figures can be plot hooks and lend their name to towns.

3) Shape of natural features. Your players will definitely remember a boob-centric name, through I suggest running a few though Old English as to be a bit more subtle than that mountain range. And yes, several boob-named mountains exist and are named as you'd think.

4) It's inhospitable. I think the Apocalypse Mountains and Death Valley are pretty descriptive names for these regions. Good for high level areas. Players might think twice about venturing into the Dragon Teeth mountains...

[PhoenixPhyre]

We also name them pretty stupid things. Like naming a state after a fictional character, because why not?

Some sources of stupid names are:

1) The guy who discovered it got to put it onto a map and everyone else just copied it. Why does lake Disappointment or Useless Loop exist? Because the first guy didn't like the place.

2) Local stories or legends. Legendary figures can be plot hooks and lend their name to towns.

3) Shape of natural features. Your players will definitely remember a boob-centric name, through I suggest running a few though Old English as to be a bit more subtle than that mountain range. And yes, several boob-named mountains exist and are named as you'd think.

4) It's inhospitable. I think the Apocalypse Mountains and Death Valley are pretty descriptive names for these regions. Good for high level areas. Players might think twice about venturing into the Dragon Teeth mountains...

I like this especially for geographic features (as opposed to settlement names). Although there are plenty of "stupid" town names out there.

I named one major lake "Lake Coinyin'--a corrupted form of the Irish "coinin", meaning rabbit. Because the shape of it looks kind of like a bunny.

Other regions have evocative names:

"The Sea of Grass" for a major plain region. "Moon's Vengeance" for a broken crater-land formed when a moon was pulled down to destroy an empire back in ancient history. "Jungle of Fangs" for a a jungle inhabited by a snake-obsessed culture. Etc.

[JoeJ]

While good advice, it might not make much sense if you want ACTUAL English place names, rather than just place names pronounced in the English language. We have some pretty illogical ways of naming our towns, since we've had to filter them through Gaelic, Roman and Scandinavian and French occupation, and then there were some pretty radical changes made in the middle ages and later the 19th century reforms.... There's not much of a pattern, is what I'm trying to say

That melange sounds very English to people even slightly familiar with the country, though. And I don't know where in the world the OP is located*, but if the players are fluent in the English language many of those names will be understandable enough to make logical deductions about. For example, if there's an Upper Heyford then there's probably also a Lower Heyford, and maybe a Middle Heyford as well. (Not necessarily all in the present, though. Great Ormsby might well retain that name even if Little Ormsby was abandoned a century ago.)

(*edit: I just noticed that it's Sweden, so I won't assume the players are all fluent in English.)

[Corneel]

I have a list of around 300 settlement names from a Anglosaxonish kingdom I was working on you could use. Feel free to let me know if you want it, but since it is in Excel and contains extraneous information it would take some effort to transpose it so I'd rather only do it if someone is actually interested. I might also have some other geographical names (rivers, provinces, regions) hanging around from the same setting.

[Lorsa]

I have a list of around 300 settlement names from a Anglosaxonish kingdom I was working on you could use. Feel free to let me know if you want it, but since it is in Excel and contains extraneous information it would take some effort to transpose it so I'd rather only do it if someone is actually interested. I might also have some other geographical names (rivers, provinces, regions) hanging around from the same setting.

I would love a list like that. I might not use all the names, but I will most certainly use some.

[Lorsa]

(*edit: I just noticed that it's Sweden, so I won't assume the players are all fluent in English.)

They are all fluent enough. As a matter of fact, we use English as the language for in-character speech, whereas all descriptions and out-of-character stuff is in Swedish. Makes it easy to keep track of.

[JoeJ]

They are all fluent enough. As a matter of fact, we use English as the language for in-character speech, whereas all descriptions and out-of-character stuff is in Swedish. Makes it easy to keep track of.

That's very cool. I'd like to do something like that if I could get players able to manage it. (It would have to be Spanish, though, and we'd need to gloss over the detail that pretty much every Spanish speaker around here speaks Mexican Spanish.)

[FreddyNoNose]

I am not used to asking for help, but I figured I would do it in this case to help save time and enery for myself.

I need some help figuring out names to put on a map. That is, names for towns, villages and hamlets. Names for forests, rivers, mountains, hills and whatnot. Basically I am trying to create a world and I need names for the geographical locations.

If you are feeling particularly creative, you can also come up with name suggestions for an adventurer's guild.

How about:
http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com...p#.WtkGnn8h2po

[Corneel]

So as promised:
Metropolises: Wharton; Moreham

Large Cities: Aberley, Kingston, Leode

Small Cities: Bridgestow, Lothian, Berry, Fenley, Wolverton, Dull, Stowe, Dalham, Hazelwood, Lessig, Astholm, Brinkstow, Ganney, Sedgethwaite, Sherbrooke, Burwick, Lytmire, Mossford

Large Towns: Beverly, Dolburn, Eskermouth, Bournbrook, Berning, Thornwood, Lythurst, Hungrave, Haggerhowe, Garrinch, Wereham, Elmley, Chester, Ainfernley, Balford, Newdale, Mosstowe, Yell, Steading, Inness, Greenhold, Bingham, Mulley, Lam, Dunning, Kayberry, Dalewood, Spreckelborough, Lumley, Leighstone, Lytgarth, Barsing, Wetley, Woodhall, Beeching, Annesley, Axested, Mossley, Oldfield, Stillingburg, Ernsworth, Isingham, Elderdale, Hightree, Drummant, Thames, Horngill, Senwick, Swettenham, Woodhurst, Linga, Sumpter, Lewslink, Overruddy, Deeping, Runby, Gravelwood, Garlinge, Firth, Ferwick, Ridgebury, Acton, Merbrooke, Bearsden, Beechhurst, Bloomington, Westleigh, Redelham, Wildermire, Finleigh, Sidleham, Sherhurst, Twobrooks, Hotwells, Churlhold, Burnethwaite

Small Towns: Groomshold, Quickbrook, Searsted, Bourneham, Hall, Harris, Bexley, Sigwell, Newell, Cocklecreek, Sedgefield, Dellbrook, Sondull, Linden, Polway, Gynshaw, Lowe, Spirewood, Kiddering, Berngate, Hornst, Thainfernley, Oakley, Delve, Rudmere, Kinleigh, Twattham, Medley, Ramsted, Gammich-upon-Stilling, Leafsted, Herst, Highgate, Hope, Willham, Barnsley, Charford, Gynshawe, Waysted, Howe, Smalberry, Toddbrooke, Gravellow, Dunberry, Whitedown, Midstol, Lewes, Leysing, Mintwood, Lennerhall, Stanford, Eskerleigh, Bornwell, Lawbrooke, Sceate, Glemmore, Stemmire, Wardine, Walsted, Barefield, Leist, Hostall, Stobridge, Blooming, Becking, Yewfilly, Piddle, Hingermarton, Wiffleham, Barham, Grantree, Searley, Garbrooke, Lindsley, Tulling, Slurrey, Meade, Bernham, Auburn, Fossey, Rosthwaite, Dymmond, Dowham, Lower Pulley, Lockdale, Morrow, Yewbourne, Beechwood, Ashton, Earthwaite, Layne, Borliburn, Lowbrooke, Logansburg, Odingham, Slothwaite, Mareham, Lund, Brydon, Hosted, Sayner, Bradlyn, Leigh, Slickley, Hondall, Ossam, Fernley, Stowe on Howe, Oldham, Ammey, Cwerne, Brighton, Bentham, Hammych, Easning, Astam, Faireye, Emersley, Waylin, Wearmbury, Ham-upon-Hoare, Hawton, Herringham, Stowedale, Bastlyn, Moore, Finross, Raveley, Cobbe, Mirey, Bushford, Furrow, Slosted, Brytton, Sperhurst, Bendberry, Beckinstowe, Earnherst, Sennybrooke, Slough, Firleigh, Wolvering, Rockbury, Sandhall, Graemling, Salsted, Dolmoor, Cwabbey, Linsig, Thwaite, Sweabeham, Upwick, Upper Pulley, Delving, Beckwold, Lillmark, Deepingbury, Winderbourne, Rosevale, Stuffingham, Aydham, Weir, Newstoke, Woodfield, Bernethwaite, Mullewes, Sandley, Eastfield, Hythe, Meadingham, Millbrook, Starkley, Leekham, Slowbrook, Hightower, Trelling, Folkmere, Bloomingham, Thackerey, Ayding, Searinch, Burningbank, Trestarke, Anwinsted, Finstow, Anglestow, Wastowe, Foxthwaite, Rolling, Trebourne, Kylmoss, Highlew, Elmering, Newmeade, Delvinghurst, Bath, Brightpool, Loham, Lawkenberry, Lindenberry, Fawney, Roring, Gosangle, Kimmerling, Bromley, Starking, Kendalewood, Newhaven, Tredon, Sceating, Lothwaite, Kinnering, Browleigh, Waterfill.

Rivers: Aldring, Ayn, Ayworth, Berre, Blackwater, Dimming, Drome, Esk, Ferrow, Hoare, Leyne, Lyck, Meade, Meander, Millbrook, Mossburn, Redwater, Rupple River, Scealling, Scirring, Scynne, Senning, Sesmire River, Stilling, Tyre, Whitewater, Whitt (South Whitt & North Whitt), Wisring, Yrne.

Regions: Dalmeark, Falshire, Leighmarch, the Aynshires, Westmoreland, Eastmoreland, Burrowlands

Natural Regions: the Woodlands, the Yewfields (including Yewfield Uplands), Seamore Marshes, Greyling Hills, Leighland Hills, Berredale Forest, Lower Scealling Wetlands (including Rupplelands)

[Samzat]

My advice is to name locations after what is there (ex. Volgograd in Russia, Cape Town in South Africa, or Angel Rock in New Mexico), the founder or another important person (such as the two continents of America, named after Amerigo Vespucci), if a place is built or visited for a reason, or around an industry, that could make the name (such as the multitude of bodies of water in New England named Mill River, or places with port as a suffix). It could also be named after the people who settled it (such as France or Afghanistan) or events that happened there (cant think of examples atm but these tend to be memorable names if you come up with a story behind them)

[Lorsa]

So as promised:

Thanks a lot! This will be helpful for sure.

[Corneel]

Thanks a lot! This will be helpful for sure.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask (in thread or by PM).

[Jay R]

Here is a list of place names from the Domesday Boke, published in 1086.

[redwizard007]

Here is a list of place names from the Domesday Boke, published in 1086.

That is a great resource. Thanks for linking