Help with country names?

[Razanir]

I have ideas for countries in my world, along with cultures and languages to base them off of, but for some reason I can't think of names for them.

Countries:

• Gnomes– Giant trading empire, based off England. Language for names: Dutch. Gulderrijk
• Humans– Three countries that recently split apart, surrounding a lake, two are against the ocean, one is against the mountains. Language for names: Japanese
• Halflings– Strip of land bordering the human countries. Language for names: English or Japanese
• Halflings– Imagine the Incans, but in the Appalachian Mountains. Language for names: English
• Dwarves– Live in a boreal forest. Language for names: Icelandic
• Dwarves– Imagine Erebor, but on Hoth. Language for names: Icelandic
• Elves– Live in a forest (no surprise there). Language for names: Hawaiian. Considering Kuatahi. Played with the spelling a bit (K and T are the same letter in Hawaiian), means "Home"
• About 4 other human countries. Languages for names: English or Dutch, maybe Hawaiian
• Giants
• Kobolds

[Vonwalt]

So you're looking for names sort of in those languages, eh? Welp. here's what I got:
Gnome-dutch trading empire: Velwegenslund
Icelandic Forest Dwarves: Breidskogur, Kaltundir
Icelandic Ice Dwarves: Vestmannaejyar, Friystrikyar, Sjnorstadt

[Morph Bark]

Dutchie m'self right hurr! Also generally quite good with names, so let's see if I can help you.

Since the Gnomes have a giant trading "empire", are they an actual Empire or more of a giant corporation with a lot of land like the Dutch and English companies of the 18th century that had "Indian" in their names? If the former, I'd suggest something like "Gulderrijk" (translateable as "guilder rich", "gold rich" or "gold empire"), which could also fit with the latter.

For the three Japanese-inspired kingdoms (as well as the rest actually) do you want to have names that "feel" Japanese, or actually are Japanese?

A Hawaiian-inspired human kingdom makes me just think of Kamehameha.

The four human kingdoms could be like... Willemzea (for a seafaring kingdom), Kaledorije (a more hilly or mountainous country), Marizand or a longer official name to sound prestigious like the United Republic of the Eleven Nations of the Wutherlands.

[Inglenook]

Hawaiian elves: Mahalai? Lokomo? Akalani?
Japanese humans: Saru? Tsumari? Wakun? Ikara? Neshasu?
Appalachian halflings: Spirland? Laconia? Dunhill? Berland? Alterra? Catamount? Montcata?

[Razanir]

Originally Posted by Morph Bark

For the three Japanese-inspired kingdoms (as well as the rest actually) do you want to have names that "feel" Japanese, or actually are Japanese?

Thanks for the ideas everyone! And to answer the question, for example names like they gave in the PHB, I listed actual names from the languages. Thank you Wikipedia for that. On a side note, traditional Hawaiian names were unisex. I realized that after I decided they were for elves. Back on track, I don't require that the names mean something, but certainly

A) Keep it possible in the target language, and
B) If it does mean something, keep it clean and hopefully relevant

And Morph Bark, they actually do have an empire of sorts. I'm imagining Britain when they were super expansive, but spread over an archipelago. So yeah, Gulderrijk works

[Morph Bark]

Kaledorije is essentially a Dutchified version of Caledonia, which was the Roman name for Scotland, with the n replaced with an r. (Partly because I often replace ns with rs, partly because Dutch has a lot of rolling r sounds.)

For the Japanese human kingdoms: Manto, Kaosa, Kantuli. (I realize Japanese doesn't really have L sounds, but some Japanese are easily capable of pronouncing it right, so maybe these are just that tiny bit different linguistically? Could be they're the ones between the lake and the mountains, thus somewhat seperated from the other two.)

[ReaderAt2046]

I'd suggest that the Giant country have two names, one in Giant that's about a paragraph long and simply "Giant-land" to other cultures who don't have the patience for giant names

[Wardog]

Real-world countries are commonly named according to:

• <ethnic-group>-land : named either after the original inhabitants, later invaders, or what those people are known as to their neighbours. Examples:

• Britain: named after the original inhabitants
• England: named after an invading tribe (Angles)
• Germany: named after the Roman name for one particular tribe
  
• <geographic-feature>-land :named after a notable river/mountain/other feature. Examples:

• Iceland
• Greenland
• India (after the Indus River)
• The political system it uses. Example:

• The Hanseatic League (might be a good model for your Gnomish trading empire).
• <Name's>-country: named after someone (usually a particularly egotistical founder/conqueror). Example:

• Rhodesia* <ruling dynasty's>-country: named after the royal family/tribe that runs it. Examples:

  * Seleucid Empire
  * Saudi Arabia

You could choose one of those naming schemes for your countries (according to what seems appropriate for it's culture), and then translate it into the appropriate language to get a name.

[hiryuu]

This image is relevant and amazing.

[Morph Bark]

Originally Posted by hiryuu

This image is relevant and amazing.

It took until seeing my own country what it actually meant. That is amazing. Bulgaria and Romania are switched though.

[JustPlayItLoud]

Random fantasy names you say?