Hey everyone. I'm writing the first book of a fantasy series for about 3 years now and i'm getting close to finish it. Lately I've figured that i would want to change some names of places (cities, continents, countries, etc...) but i'm not sure how to be absoultly sure no one else has taken the name. I've been using a simple google search for some names, but i don't feel like it's enough. I'm trying to come up with names that make sense like in GOT we have, winterfell or dragonstone. So stuff like that. but i'm not sure how to make sure they're not taken. So i guess my question is, for those who also write fantasy and needs to come up with 100+ names for places etc, how do you check if your city or castle name wasn't taken or used before?
Well, you could use the forum here. We have lots of fantasy fans on the forum ...it's probably our most popular genre. You could list the names you're concerned about, and see if somebody recognises them from somewhere. It's also important to remember, however, that sharing the name of a character or even a type of character is not usually a problem. Even the name of your book can be one that has been used before. Where you get into bother is where you copy the actual story and/or wording that some other author has used. For example, I just learned this weekend that JRR Tolkien got the name 'Gandalf' from a character in William Morris' book, The Well At The World's End. However, Morris's character isn't a wizard. So no problem for JRR.
Thanks for the reply. Character names are alittle less concern for me, but names of places are hard to find. I need some names with the themes of Winter, Summer, Strom. and it seem every name i come up with has been taken by a company or buisnes place, or video game. For example, something like Stormfall has turned out to be a video game.
However, if you named a place in your story 'Stormfall' ...or even changed it slightly to something like Stormyfall, or Stormfell, you could certainly use that name, as long as the place itself isn't too much like what's in the video game. I'd suggest you give us a list of the names you're most concerned with, that would be a place to start.
The issue with shared names only comes about when the character / place is eerily similar to the original name bearer, and when the name itself is unique. Try and judge your individual cases based on these two metrics. However, a good rule of thumb is that if google search yields no results until the 3rd page, you should be all fine.
If it's the same as the name of a popular video game that's pretty current, that could draw people out of the story. Especially if a few other things also sound like well-known video games (Or songs or movies etc). But if it's only one name and the game isn't very popular I wouldn't worry about it.
Ok, thak you all. What about names of real places, lets say "The Black Forest"? I know tolkien took The Blue Mountains, which there are few of those around the world in different countries.
Maybe modify it to the Dark Forest. I mean, there wouldn't be copyright issues, but it just seems a little weird using the names of such well-known places in a fantasy world. I don't think Blue Mountains is as much of a problem because as far as I know none of them are famous. I've never heard of a range actually called that in fact, though I'm sure people say it a lot since mountains and other things off in the distance do look blue. It sounds more generic, like saying blue sky or blue water. But The Black Forest is world famous.
Ye, i don't actually have the black forest in the book. But i was thinking of something like the winter forest or sun forest. some generic stuff like that.