When one of your fictional places turns out to have the name of a real place, do you rename it?

When building my world, I named a city in my story "Kadena". Then, a few weeks later, I came across that name in the news: it turns out, Kadena is the name of an American military base in Japan. I didn't know this, but a lot of people do, so I decided to rename the "Kadena" in my story to avoid readers making an association with the real place.

Now I'm wondering, this must happen to everyone, so how do other writers deal with this? Do you look up every name you come up with to ensure it's not a real place beforehand? Do you rename things as you become aware of them, like myself in this case? Or do you even care if your fictional place shares a name with a real one?

(This is just a discussion thread; I'm just curious what other people do)

 

In addition, that's the sort of coincidence the standard disclaimer on the copyright page is designed to address.

 

The chances are most people wont know that either. For me it might jolt me out of your world if all the names are made up. So names of places, streets, people and then one earthly name amongst them. It still wouldn't overly bother me. Maybe you could play around with the spelling or change it slightly. So from Kadena to Kadia or something.

 

I google fictional place names and major characters just to make sure there isn't anything really negative associated with them, or something which could be misinterpreted in the concept of the story. I mean it would suck to name a character and then find after publication that you've coincidentally given them the same name as an infamous paedophile or something, because of what will show up in google searches of your work if nothing else. Your case sounds pretty innocuous, though, I don't think I'd be worried about it myself.

 

As others have said, you'd be fine with Kadena.

If I wanted to write a story about a woman named Martha who owned a vineyard in the fantasy kingdom of Palooza, which was inhabited by elves, orcs and trolls, I don't think any reader would be confused when a character says "Let's all go to Martha's vineyard!". If it was set in contemporary USA though, it might be a problem (although I'm sure there were people called Martha who may have owned vineyards).

 

Doesn't every US state have a town called Springfield? I don't see states taking each other to court over it. Not a problem. I don't think it's even possible to come up with a name that hasn't been used for something at some point in time.

 

Oh, it will confuse some people I know. Sort of like the joke about Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.

"There are two Martha's Vineyards. One is a favorite destination for corrupt demi-gods that think they can get away with anything. The other one is filled with elves, orc, and trolls."

 

Well, Terry Goodkind had his female MC Kahlan (high fantasy) come from the Midlands. Those of you from England will know that's a real region in England - my university was in the Midlands lol.

Didn't seem to stop him and he's a massive success. However, people will snigger, as me and my English friends have. It kinda depends on to what extent you would like a part of your book to become a bit of a joke. The more well-known the name, the worse it will be lol. So yeah, personally, I'd rename it!

Now, is snigger not an American word or something? My Chrome keeps flagging it as a misspelling but it's most definitely a word lol.

 

It definitely is, though snicker is more commonly used. I'd call snigger the more old-fashioned version.

 

Snicker is more common I think. I never hear snigger, possibly because of its resemblance to the racial slur, although I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

 

I simply know the names of every real place already, so this is never a problem for me.

 

The word used to be marathon before they changed it.

 

I'd never use it, or 'niggardly' either. It's just not worth the risk of causing a misunderstanding or creating an unnecessary rabbit hole. There was even somewhat of a controversy recently when one Chinese professor was either overheard using a common Chinese word for 'that' (anyone who regularly overhears conversations in Mandarin is bound to hear it) or was explaining that it wasn't offensive but thankfully I think reasonable minds prevailed (I think).

 

pardon?

 

Oh I heard about that. It was... kinda funny. I understand the reaction, but really, it's mostly a problem of most people still not being that internationally-minded. It shouldn't be such a shock that there are words in another language that mean completely different things that could resemble an offensive word in your own language.

I remember the time when my ex told me her mother's name is a swear word in Hindi, so her Indian friend refused to call her by her first name lol. (German name, Gunda)

And another time when I first met my now-husband, who's Czech - he was on the phone to his parents, speaking in rapid Czech. And he kept saying, "Fakt jo." The J pronounced like a Y sound, so it was basically "Fakt Yo." On top of their un-aspirated vowels the A sounded an awful lot like an U. So there he was, saying what sounded a lot like Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you to his parents on repeat in the most well-mannered way possible It just means "That's right."

Anyway yeah, kinda unfortunate with the Chinese professor that it was on international TV or something right?

 

I was confused too, I assumed 'marathon' in this context meant something like 'ubiquitous' or 'legion'.

 

It was a joke on the name of the Snickers chocolate bar - which used to be called the Marathon bar in the UK. I don't know if you get those in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers

 

Oh, I see. We have them for sure, they're one of the most popular candy bars here. Snickers Satisfies.

 

*Groan* Dude—that was a looooong way to run for a joke. Get it? A long way to run? Yeah ok, I'll see myself out now.

 

Snickers, or Marathon bars? I've lived in the U.S. for seven and a half decades and I've never heard of a Marathon bar.

 

I thought @Naomasa298 was talking about Snicker's. I don't think they were ever called Marathon bars in the US.

 

I think I've derailed the thread enough. Sorry folks.

 

More derailing ahead—Marathon was the name of a town in ancient Greece. I don't remember the details, but a messenger had to run all the way there to deliver some important message or info. He died shortly after arriving, but deliver he did, and they won the war or whatever because of it. And now people do it all the time as a fun thing.

Here, actual facts and stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon#Origin

 

I hate to tell you, but it actually gets more complicated than that. But yeah, what we call Snicker's in the U.S. was never called a Marathon bar here as long as I've lived.