As the title says, I'm having a rough time naming a city for my fictional world. So you are able help me, I'll describe it, but first my world: It is divided into four regions (the farmlands, the highlands, etc.) and each region is governed by a Lord. This city is located in the center of the four regions, and is outside the boundary of them. Many roads lead to this city, as it could be described as the biggest and busiest city in my world. I want to have a simple, but archaic name for it, but everything seems wrong. I was going to call it Bastion, but I wasn't really sure...
That depends on how you are writing. The tone of the city name, as well as other names throughout the story, should be consistent with the story tone and any cultural characteristics of the land. For a more whimsical tale, you could get away with a fairy-tale name, but for a dark and moody tale, you want a name that is of a similar flavor. Thjis is really an author's decision to make. It's also one you can change your mind on at any time during the writing process.
When it comes to naming things, especially with an archaic feel to them, I like researching lost civilizations and using some variation of their language. Suggestions: Havalin Chromos Quatrome (a variation of 'middle of four' in Spanish)
That's quite the geometric symmetry you have there... Bastion has already been used in Dragonlance, and probably several other stories. Should that stop you from using it? No. The real question is what you want out of the city name. Do you want it to be symbolic? Then maybe dcoin has the right idea. Do you want it to be descriptive? Well, that's on you. Do you just want to have a feeling from it? Then decide waht feeling and find some combination of ltters that evokes it.
I like 'Quatrome'. Nice ring to it, and it's logical. In the real world, most cities/places are named for a very mundane reason. Dublin. 'Dubh Linn' -> Black River. Guess what? It's built on a river (which is cast in shadow by the cityscape and thus looks black). Truly inspired.
Excellent point. Some of them are traditional names chosen by settlers to remind them of where they came from(all examples US names): Cambridge Brighton New York Cairo Lebanon Berlin Rome Albany Syracuse Aome are named after monarchs, explorers or other leaders: Newton Washington Georgetown Hudson Columbus (or Columbia) Louisville St. Louis St. Paul San Francisco Then some are named forconcepts important to the founders: Providence Defiance Liberty And some are taken from the languages of native peoples: Milwaukee Algonquin Tallahassee Sioux Falls Finally (well, in this list anyway), some are just renderings of words like town, village, or city, or landmark features with qualifiers: Southborough (Middleborough, Westborough, etc.) Eastham. Centerville Hillborough Northbridge Plainsville Middleton Eastbrook Rockport Palm Beach, Palm Springs Pittsburgh, Pittsfield (combining with the fam,ous person category) Keep these naming methods in mind when creating city names. You may be able to add depth to your story in some cases by hinting at past events through such names.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I investigated the names of counties and cities in Britain and Ireland, and got suffixes like: -ton -by -ley -ling -borough -shire -well -bridge And so on. The place-naming process is going pretty well, I just have don't know how to name certain things. It certainly is difficult, as right now I want to name a smoking weed (like tobacco), you know, like Mr. Tolkien's pipe-weed.
There's no need to re-invent the wheel... what's wrong with just using "tobacco"? Are you going for a "weed" with significantly different properties?
Toronto is called what it's called because it means "Meeting place" is a first nations languages (don't remember which). And Canada comes from the Mohawk word for village. That's somewhat what I like to do in naming people and places. I take a real word or name in another language that fits the tone and tweak it.
I was planning to use tobacco... But I need the word 'weed' in it, and when I think of tobacco the image of a cigarrette sprouts in my mind. I want something older.
