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

Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by JadeX, Mar 29, 2021.

  1. Bruce Johnson

    Bruce Johnson Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    What's interesting, is that there was a tv show in the U.S. called MadTV (a sketch comedy show) and they had a short skit about Snickers that used the other, offensive sounding name also. In the U.S., due to profiling being common for African-American drivers, there is a thing referred to as 'driving while black', a play on 'driving while intoxicated' when a minority is stopped for no reason other than their appearance.

    Snickers, around the time, had a series of commercials extolling the benefits of a Snickers when you are hungry and have either nothing to do or something to keep you busy "Not going anywhere for awhile, grab a snickers." In this skit, the driver is stopped by a cop and instead of a Snickers bar, it is the other word mentioned in this thread derailment. Needless to say, that type of skit wouldn't fly today, even if it was intended to shed light on a real problem.
     
  2. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    If your book goes international and gets translated to Japanese, it might cause problems. OTOH, they might just change the name of the town in the Japanese version. I watched Monster Hunter yesterday and I'm pretty sure that the names of the monsters were not being fully transcribed. The Japanese hate long words.

    Side note in the derail: Tom Cruise named his daughter "Suri." Not sure where he pulled the name from, but in Japanese it means "pickpocket." That caused a bit of hilarity.
     
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  3. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    Worse name ever to be translated into Japanese - Rory -> ロリ. Although I guess it would be transliterated as ローリ to spare any embarassment.
     
  4. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    Used to be, you could have more than one municipality with the same name in the same U.S. state. For instance, here in Pennsylvania we have at least two places called "Center Township."

    Some time in the mid-1800s, the Office of the Postmaster General in the U.S. banned that practice. A community in northwestern Missouri applied for a post office, but the name they chose was rejected--- there was already a place in Missouri so denominated. They tried three more times; each time, the Post Office Department in Washington said no. Finally--- Well, here's what happened:

    [​IMG]
     
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  5. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    It's funny, but I've deliberately chosen a place name because of common associations. I.e., I've made up a university town called "Mount Athens," because it's a done thing in America to call your seat of learning after the city of the goddess of wisdom.

    On the other hand, I've changed the names of characters because they turned out to be shared with people who are well-known within their spheres.

    You probably could have gotten away with Kadena for your fantasy city, but the fact that only one other place on earth is called that might be good enough reason to back off.

    Me, I probably would have mutated the K to a G to get "Gadena," or messed around with the vowels to come up with "Kaedena," or gone with "Katema," or something like that. What did you end up doing?
     

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