The title should tell problem, but here are the dirty details. For a couple years now, I have tried to create a fantasy world with many kingdoms and epic scale, but now I would like have some help with brainstorming place names for towns and other population centers. The fantasy world is similar to Medieval Europe (cliched, I know), and if you guys and gals could throw some names/ideas that sound Dutch/French/German. Thanks in advance.
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/fantasy-town-names.php There's dozens of these generators out there. Most are for character names, but if you do enough searching you'll find others like this, I'm sure.
Here's what I do when making up place names (can also work for surnames)... Go to google maps, hover over a country and zoom far in. Take two town names visible on the zoomed in image, and merge them. For example I just zoomed in over Germany, and found the names Ebenheim and Weingarten next to each other. So you could have Ebengarten, or Webenheim. Doesn't take long so its worth a try Just be aware of the languages, so you don't end up with something strange sounding like Weinheim (means Wine-home)
If you know the general topography of an area (“this kingdom has a lot of mountains, this kingdom is in a desert”) that should help you come up with names for towns in that area! You can also give them names relating to function (e.g. there are a lot of towns where I live called ‘fort’ or ‘port’ something). Look at something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland to help you figure out some names suited to the location. For example, the mountainous kingdom would have lots of names including things like bre- (hill), ar- (high), and ben (mountain). Or say there’s a town in the valley in the east, it could be something like Astcombe. Here’s more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_toponymy since you want German-sounding places. There’s less here, but it might be of some help as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_toponymy
Considering everyone has told you what to do I'll tell you what you shouldn't do. When creating names for characters I would suggest not using an extensive amount of Xs. Also make sure you don't need to look up how to pronounce a character's name. If you struggle with pronouncing the name at first chances are the readers will as well. Don't over complicate the lore of the world in your story. I'm not saying it's bad to have some lore for your fantasy world, but if you constantly have the reader refer back to the lore to understand something that is happening you might have over done it. (Unless your J. R. R Tolkien who knows how to do it properly)
theoriginalmonsterman: I have kept that as a rule - unpronounceable names are banned, and I haven't any place starting with X. Second, I've kept the history mostly "simple" - so far I've written a 9-page "guidebook", if you will, which outlines the history, the nations and cultures of the world, mostly to work as my own reference material. Pippy May: I didn't know that Wikipedia had such articles. Thank you! To the rest of helpers, I thank you.
