This is probably going to sound stupid but I'm having a really difficult time when it comes to naming places. I originally thought I'd base the names of people and places on older languages such as Old English or whatever but that kind of pulls people back from the fantasy element somewhat. I wanted to have three or four continents with different cultures on them and thus each with a unique naming style but I'm at a loss for inspiration on that front. If anyone could offer some advice I'd appreciate it.
What are your different cultures like? That would give you one way to proceed. Brutish, cruel? Maybe try short words, one or two syllables. Hard consonants. Wise, ancient? Long words, multiple syllables, frillier sounding. You can borrow from elements of latin or greek. Simple, kind? Warm, smooth sounding words, softer consonants. Words that sound like they belong in a rural dialect. Not very sophisticated, but it's what I'd do.
I have a place that is my lover's name spelled backwards. Naming places can be hard. Don't overthink it. I know it can be hard to think of something when the options seem endless. Too many choices. But I say have a little fun with it. Mash two words together. Name the place "Bob" if you want or "dishwasher." Once it's in the story and it's normal in that world, I think most readers will play along.
Not at all, at least in my case. The number one thing I hate in fantasy is stupid, made up names with random apostrophes. I like apostrophes if they have a purpose, though, because they do look cool. I love Old English, so I would be 100% more likely to read your book if your characters had Anglo-Saxon names. (and you can't say that Old English names in Tolkien really pulled you away from the fantasy element. The dark ages were epic. Plague, death, bandits, sea faring raiders, peasants tilling the land, deep dark forests, savage battles, the ringing clash of steel, blood feuds, alliterative poetry, mead halls...) But if your set on not using those names, a good way to create less cringey names is to come up with a rudimentary language of your own. Maybe just a few words with the sound your looking for, and experiment with compounding them.
In the western world, most towns are named after either geographic features or historical figures. Oxford is named after the oxen that used to ford the river at the shallows in the area, and Dublin is an anglicized form of Dubh Linne, meaning black water, after a pool that was supposed to be there.
The running list of names I go to is for people but also places. Everything can be tweaked just a bit to make it more place-ish. Nothing wrong with Old English. Love that in fantasy. Of course, it doesn't work across the board when you want to have places with unique dialects. I find myself cringing and being pulled out of the story with particular bad sci-fi sounding place names in fantasy, also when they are so very obviously desperate fantasy names. Just don't pepper everything with extra Ys and Xs.
Thank you all for the replies. There have been some very useful hints and tips. I'm going to go with my original plan which is using older languages, and then I can always tweak names if required in specific instances.
I wouldn't say basing your names off Old English would pull people out of the fantasy element of things. Do you think the average population is familiar with Old English or even what it looks like? Of course not. Tolkien's names are all based off Old English and Old Norse, I thought? No one seems to have problems with Middle Earth and he wrote the mother of all fantasy books!
You can also go to other languages for inspiration, but try to change the names just a little bit, so people don't assume anything.
Many place names come from history. Invent a history for an area, and you'll have sources for names. It can be from an event, a person, or both. Use the indigenous languages. And the history doesn't have to be important history, it can be personal to the people who founded the place. Do a little research on the etymology of real place names, and use that as a guide. Virginia - named to honor the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Pennsylvania - "Penn's Forest" Vermont - "Green Mountain" Check out this Wikipedia article for ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_name_origins
Personally I find naming anything but the main character to be rather easy. To me names are just that. Words made up on the spot for things we associate then with. We call mountains mountains and john is named john. But why is John named john and that specific mountain named john mountain? Really it's just our fancy that made it so. Yes most names have some sort of root meaning but I don't think many people can recall even their own root meanings or origins without a Google search or having some educated background in the subject. But ultimately i think people in real life name things based on if it feels right. Most people can tel you what or who they are named after but little else. My advise is simply find names that feel right to you. Yes, i agree with other posters that you should refrain from names similar to "Ro` Shak` Lurmour Amoniga" if only to prevent confusion or making up names your reader spends hoops trying to pronounce, but neither must you name everybody George or Sarah. Try to find a Happy balance. I think there's nothing wrong with plainer names used in fantasy, it is fiction afterall and most works won't follow Earthly time lines. Thus have fun with it. I think it's most important to find names that your reader will remember so it's easier to reintroduce those characters back in later when they reappear. Don't over think the name or place. Calling a town Johnnystead is just as rational as calling it Rim`Mordah. Maybe the town started as a simple farm owned by a guy called Johnny. I think play with the names and worry later if they need more meaning added to them when you have actually developed the area first.
Something to keep in mind that places don't have foreign names. Germans don't call Germany "Germany". Japan is really Nihon. Your protagonist's culture will have words for foreign lands that will sound more of that culture's language than a foreign one.
I made two lists. On one, I listed every word I could think of that could be used for a place name. Haven, Port, Fort, City, Town, Mount, Home, Rest, Hall, Hold, Hearth, Fell, Bane, Landing, Cliff, Heath, Bog, Perch, Keep, Field, Town, Reach, Bridge, Ford, March. My other list was words that I liked the sound of, or fit my fantasy setting. Star, Tree, Sky, Traveller, King, Queen, Dawn....etc. Then I combined them. Examples: Wanderport, Gryphon's Rest, Thorncliff, Amberfield, Morningfell, Rosehold.
I second that motion. I used to do this in my youth. If your reader has to spend more time on figuring out how to pronounce a name, something is wrong. It's hard enough as it is to pronounce easier fantasy words because our minds have to figure our the "correct way" as we read. There aren't dictionaries to teach you pronounciation. My rule of thumb is make it as easy as possible for the reader. Look at the Lord of the Rings' character, Faramir. If the movies didn't tell me how to pronounce it, I would have guessed the "correct way" to say it is "Far-uh-mere" or even "Far-uh-mer." The movies pronounce it "Fare-uh-mere." And that's an easier fantasy word to pronounce. Imagine a crazy one like Friederich mentioned above. Readers are going to pronounce words the way they were taught to pronounce words growing up. Some german words look just like if not simialr to english words yet they are pronounced differently. My Methods: I always go to existing words. My biggest tools are combination and altering. For example (a dumb one), Lets take the word "haggard" and performing an entymology search (https://www.etymonline.com) on "wink" which gives me the word "wankon." Now some simple addition and subtraction. Haggard - hag = gard. Wankon - W = Ankon. Gard + Ankon = Gardankon or Haggard - Hag&D = Gar Wankon - W&N = Akon Gard + Akon = Garakon From there you can alter your word however you like. Change some letters. Add some letters. Remove some letters. Now i'm not saying these are good or bad names for a place or people, but at least you see how I got from point A to point B. Another method is using old names like you menioned in your initial post. I do it all the time and will sometimes even alter or combine things to create my own words. History is useful. A lot of surnames were just occupations and nowadays we just think of them as surnames (e.g. Taylor, Smith, Baker, Miller, Carter, Clarke, Skinner, Gardener, and so on). Name searches are especially useful when you need a specific name structure. Names aren't a random composition of consonats, vowels, and sometimes punctation. J.R.R Tokien knew this; he was a linguist. Do an entymology search for your name and see what you find out. My name's root goes back to a title for a member of the ancient Roman noble order. But the true origin of my name is entirely different. It was actually the closest english translation from a italian name. My great great grandfather wanted to sound more american and now my first name is a family name. It also depends on what type of names you are looking for. What names you need and how they match your story world. Maybe my names are too far off from your vision and you need something more like Rosehold. Or maybe all human names are like Stormsong's names and all orc dwarf places are like mine (Garakon). Right? not every race has the same name structure.
If it's something Humans use, naming towns or empires or cities or weapons, etc, can be difficult because...well Humans have words. Like actual words with meanings and concepts. But frankly, if it's something that alien beings or non-human beings use, I tend to just use what I can best describe as a "letter slurry" to come up with some term or name that sounds interesting and evocative. It doesn't need to "make sense" too much, just make it something pronounceable and that sounds interesting. The fact is, and maybe this is just me, I figure that aliens and non-human beings would never use anything like our parlance. So it just has to, basically, sound "cool" and also have perhaps some meaning compared to our words.
