Names for fantasy countries / regions, help appreciated

[Kensen]

I'm designing a play-by-post wargame where 8 factions amass wealth, raise armies, conquer and loot, and crush weaker nations. Diplomacy and trickery is also an important part of the game.

Anyway, the game world has 21 territories and I could use some help with naming them. I've already got a few ideas for names, as can be seen below, but I'm not entirely happy with all of them...

Each of the four cardinal directions has a theme: west = water, east = mountains/earth, south = heat, and north = cold.



.......... __________ Silvery___ __________ ..........
.......... __________ Fields____ __________ ..........

__________ __________ Enchanted_ __________ __________
Bluehaven_ __________ Forest____ Mistwood__ Nethergloom

__________ Golden____ Sacred____ __________ Mountain__
Riverdale_ Plains____ Valley____ __________ Hold______

__________ __________ __________ __________ __________
__________ __________ __________ __________ __________

.......... Ten_______ Burning___ Plateau___ ..........
.......... Oases_____ Sands_____ of Gods___ ..........


Help is appreciated

[Zeta Kai]

Well, if we're talking elemental-based names, here's something I cooked up a while ago to deal with naming conventions on the Inner Planes. I hope that this helps; it's not meant to be gospel, just a rough set of suggestions. I conceived of this by going through the English alphabet (& a few of the more common diphthongs) & categorizing them according to which ones sounded like they belonged to a particular element.

Element

• Common Consonants
• Common Vowels
• Examples

Fire

• F/K/P/S/T
• Ah/Au/Ih
• Fahkar, Kihsst, Ptukaus, Aukapf, Staufak

Earth

• B/D/G/J/V/Z
• Oh/Uh
• Bohdug, Juhza, Ovohbad, Zuhgo, Vodugov

Water

• L/M/N/R/W/Y
• Ae/Ee
• Laemenee, Ereewen, Nymae, Waeryeen, Aelary

Air

• Ch/Dh/H/Kh/Sh/Th/Zh
• Ai/Eh/Oo
• Chaidhe, Hookhi, Eshooth, Zhaiha, Dhesach

[Icewalker]

Wow, that's awesome Zeta...I should use some of those.

Regardless, the way I find names is always through anagrams, and it can come out with some nice stuff. For example, my frozen wastes continent is called the Zaes Wefront, discovered by the famous explorer Wrovn Zaestes.

[chronoplasm]

When in doubt, anagram!

Water= Tawre
Earth= Harte
Mountain= Nouminat
Fire= Reif
Heat= Aeth

[Meek]

I like to use Ainu, Native American, Aboriginal and Polish words for my regional names. But that's rather setting-specific and probably not what you're going with.

[Kensen]

Thank you, really good ideas. What I've been trying to do thus far is to use names that are descriptive enough for the players to visualize the terrain without reading any flavor text. Perhaps I'll try mixing descriptive names with something that sounds exotic... What would Tolkien do and perhaps onomatopoeia also helps, which is what Zeta Kai basically suggested.

And using words from other languages.. hmm hmm, many new ideas

Plains of Alava (alava = low-lying in Finnish)
Jernfjell Mountains (jern = iron, fjell = fell in Norwegian)

How's that sound?

[chronoplasm]

And using words from other languages.. hmm hmm, many new ideas

Plains of Alava (alava = low-lying in Finnish)
Jernfjell Mountains (jern = iron, fjell = fell in Norwegian)

How's that sound?

Perfect! Do those.

[Zeta Kai]

How's that sound?

Those are a great start. Keep it up.

Well, my work here is done. Up, up, & away!