short plot outline: 3 prisoners in a fantasy world, locked up and tortured for their faith in a foreign country. my problem: i need a name for a hard militaristic and oppressive society dominated by racial and faith based hatred of foreigners. and one for a more open society, still dominated by a single religion, but based upon freedom of expression. i'm terrible at coming up with names but once i have a few ideas to work with i can cannibalize them, i would be grateful if you could provide this.
A lot of religious sects are name after people (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Buddhism, etc.). As for a militaristic society, materials, colors and animals are good places to start. Hitler was called the Wolf, Stalin means steel, Khmer Rouge has the word red in the name.
Maybe it's cus I'm religious, I'm nitpicking on your word choice of "sect"... Definition of sect here: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sect?searchDictCode=all Lutheranism and Calvinism are just more specific branches of Christianity, and Buddhism is a religion in its own right. None of these are sects. Now Quiverful... that's probably a sect. At least when I think about it, I think of sect and cult as synonyms and both involve high levels of brainwashing, manipulation and their members are typically tightly controlled by the leaders. A normal, healthy religion isn't like that.
Sect is a fine word to use (except about Buddhism; you're right there). A sect is not the same thing as a cult, and I certainly didn't mean to say that these are cults. Here's a quote from wikipedia entry on "sects": While the historical usage of the term "sect" in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox,[13][14] its primary meaning is to indicate a community which has separated itself in some way from the larger body from which its members came and to which they may or may not still adhere. The term remains valid for this purpose.
In Northern Ireland, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants was frequently described as "Sectarian violence".
The pejorative use of sect is only common in Christian nations. For the sake of getting back to the OPs topic, I'll amend my statement to, "A lot of religious sects, schools, denominations, traditions, etc. are named after people."
If you cannot come up with something yourself (even when considering basing the names on important people/the founders or other similar methods) you could always try a name generator. (Google "city name generator", "male name generator" or whatever you need at the time.) When I can't find a name I usually generate a few hundred names (10-20 at a time) and select those that I think sound decent (when I'm done I usually have 5-10 good names). After that I see if I can somehow mix some of those names together to create the perfect name. I would provide you with an example of this but sadly I don't have one right now (I've been able to come up with names myself lately).
A quick comment at a slight tangent, but when choosing names, make sure you can make the names of the others from the same society/religion have at least roughly the same "feel" or it will feel like a hodge podge of names tossed in at random. For instance, a Celtic name would sound very different from a Roman one, and two people from the same class and society would be unlikely to have such divergent names unless one was an immigrant.
What I'd probably do is think about the origins, founding, etc., of the respective countries (they are different countries and not just competing cultures in the same land, aren't they?) and research ancient languages for words expressing that, then tack on the ending "-land" or "-ia". Words meaning, say, "The Land of the Bloodthirsty Hyenas" or "Nation of the Bigoted Throat-Cutters." In the real world nations often take their names from ancient tribes and/or their patriarchs/founders.
If you really want to close a thread, start saying nasty things about members of the forum and their close relatives. One of the moderators will be happy to come in and oblige. In general, though, threads aren't closed. This one will remain here for other members to contribute to and benefit from, maybe long after your book is done and published. That's the beauty of it.
As @Catrin Lewis said, threads generally don't get closed unless the thread breaks the forum rules. So just leave it here and it will eventually disappear into the abyss.
oh, ok. im not used to this. generally i feel a responsibility for my threads, i dont like to just let them go.
How about calling the evil, religious-based hating city "Malurbis"? It's the portmanteau of the Latin words malum (evil) and urbis (city). Alternatively you could call it Sancturbis, with sanctus being the Latin word for holy. You could call the more-freedom city Liburbis. Here in the good ol' Republic, it was known as The Troubles
That is true, but people are not going to keep posting forever. And in the meantime you could always go to the top of the page and click "Unwatch thread". If you do that you won't get any more notifications about posts here.
