A Question and looking for Suggestions For a story I'm writing currently, I need the name of a fictional town in Idaho. I know anything can be a town name really but everything I think of seems stupid. I also need a 'nickname' for a set of 'cliffs' near a house, so what all the students call them when they go hang out there. Also, what population is reasonable for a small town?? Not so small that everyone knows everyone, but small enough that gossip travels and such. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
First of all, you may want to read this: http://voices.yahoo.com/fictional-place-names-5-tips-name-fictional-2836325.html and this, just in case something inspires you: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/ Second of all, my town is a small place in Wales, with a population of around 15000-16000, and gossip still travels VERY fast. Having said that, Wales is a big place for gossiping, so a town in Idaho may have to be smaller. Research current populations of towns, both in Idaho and in other places - just Google 'current population of _______'. Sometimes it can be out of date, but it's just to give you a general idea. Hope that helps.
anything ending in 'ville' or a last name plus 'corners' would work for a small town in idaho, if you don't want to come too close to a real town's name, since those are typical 'smalltown' names, but i don't find any in that state... [i've driven across the state and through many of its small towns]... the state itself is very sparsely populated, so small towns abound there... the size tom mentions would be the upper limit, imo... could be as 'small' as 5k or fewer... the smallest towns in idaho actually have single-digit populations... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Idaho
I live in Idaho. There are two basic sources for place names here: Indian names and geographic names (Sandpoint, Soda Springs, Middleton, Twin Falls, etc.). You could easily look up Bannock or Nez Perce place names and use one. Another approach would be to take an English place name and translate it into French--French trappers lent names, including Pend d'Oreille and Boise (les bois). Translating to another language is a reliable trick for all kinds of fantasy settings.
I just took a gander through my USA atlas and looked at Idaho. Roughly HALF of the names on the list of towns are simply somebody's surname. Some local pioneer, no doubt. You can't go wrong with just using somebody's name. Addie, Ashton, Avery, Baker, Bancroft, Banida, Banks ...etc. These are just a few at the start of the alphabet. Most of them don't have -ville added to the end of them, but are just the surnames. Obviously you'd have to check to make sure your fictitious name doesn't exist in reality, though.
I lived in a city (town?) of 300,000 and even there, gossip travelled fast! But I agree that 15,000-20,000 is probably a good amount (though that is pretty small, especially by Us standards)
