How to name places for my fantasy series?

Question

I'm writing a fantasy series (planning, I should say). I have the land down, the history, the major plotlines for all books and the character bios. Now, I just need names for towns, villages, cities, etc. How do you name them? I don't just want to throw a bunch of letters together, so any advice??

Answer 1

Naming is an art and can make or break a story. I have a knack for that sort of thing, and can give you a few suggestions. Try coming up with an ending and beginning you like for a name, then fiddle around with the middle.

Just a tip on fantasy naming: try putting any random syllables together and see how they sound. Something just not sitting right? Try adding/subtracting letters as well as rearranging and finding different combinations. Also, keep in mind, for villains Vs and Zs work really well, as does pretty much any harsh sounding letter. I like to use Ls and Ms for good guys. Remember, a name is very important and must suit the character's personality.

Make sure the name both sounds good when you speak it aloud and looks good when you write it. Simply try different letter combinations of the same sound. a name can end up sounding the same but looking totally different. For example, don't like the C in Carl? Try Karl, or even Kharl.

There are also many fantasy name generators available online; just google it.

Sorry, most of what  I wrote was about character names as opposed to places, but the same can be applied there. Except, of course, you wouldnt want to name a city Carl.

Answer 2

Think of the oddest names u can begin with, take a name from a person, a place.Then twist them together. For example:

Glurk+Alfie+Glade= Glurfide

Answer 3

Name some towns after political leaders if you have the history down. You could name towns after relatives, home towns, etc. that you have grown up with. There are a variety of things you can do for names.

Hope I helped! =]

Answer 4

What I've always liked to do is to use plant names and tweak them a bit. Especially the scientific names. And since this is a fantasy story, it works better.

Here's a government site of plants. http://plants.usda.gov/java/threat?txtpa...

Just going down the list, you can see some interesting names. There's Amorpha, Carex, Halesia, Liparis, Osmunda... and like I said, you tweak the names. For example, you can take the "a" off of Osmunda, the "i" out of Halesia...

Hope this helped. This works well for me. And it saves you the trouble of coming up with something yourself that could sound stupid, you know?

Answer 5

Get out an Atlas and look at the names in other countries - use them as a jumping off point - then twist them in to your own words and names.  

Answer 6

Yes. to better explain it go to...

www.writing.com

I bet you pick something up there!

There's nothing better than giving "them" names that would be real to the people who live there...

1) try looking online

2) liberary for maps

3) real town names to give you ideas