Topic: names for a new campaign setting

[kreider204]

So, I'm in the midst of creating my own HARP campaign.  I have very clear ideas about the sort of world I want - in many ways, it's fairly classic (some might even say "generic" . . . ). 

The only tough part: coming up with names for the different regions, countries, cities, languages, etc.  Everything I come up with sounds like a 12 year old's rip-off of Tolkein . . .

Anyone here come up with their own campaings, and if so, how did you invent names?  Were there any sources you used for inspiration?  Or did you just plain steal from real-world sources? 

Any advice?

[RandalThor]

I, too, find that the hardest part of the process so I unashamedly steal, steal, steal!!

Other than that, you can take known words and give them a scramble to come up with new words. Of course, this won't help much if you are trying to get something that sounds like a language - like similar phonetics and stuff.

[kreider204]

Ya, I've been trying the scramble approach, but I'm not too good at it, as it tends to have goofy-sounding results.   

[Mormegil]

I, too, find that the hardest part of the process so I unashamedly steal, steal, steal!!

Count this as another vote for theft.

[John Duffield]

It is the hardest thing to do.  I personally try to have, for each race, some idea of how the language sounds - gutteral, soft, sing song, flowing, sibiliant - and then pick words that match that.

Add to that aspects like use of double vowels, double costants and then some standard words for things like towns, mountains, rivers and forests and you start to get a fairly good set of words for regional areas and names.

[kreider204]

It is the hardest thing to do.  I personally try to have, for each race, some idea of how the language sounds - gutteral, soft, sing song, flowing, sibiliant - and then pick words that match that.

Add to that aspects like use of double vowels, double costants and then some standard words for things like towns, mountains, rivers and forests and you start to get a fairly good set of words for regional areas and names.

Very interesting, thank you!

I'm trying to break down some of the standard racial cliches, so I'm building languages around regions instead of races (the races are fully intergrated in this setting), but that works regardless.

Thanks again!

[Karizma]

I am luckily blessed with the ability to name.  On-the-spot?  No.  But when I world-build, I sit down, and just spout a bunch of very generic fantasy-names.  I go through and throw away the ones that could be easily mocked: "Dum?d (DOO-mehd) is Doomed!"  But instead of making a word and plugging it, I come up with a slew of maybe five names at once, and pick and choose from those.  If NONE of them are "good", I do five more.  Remember that names aren't usually "chosen" but more or less "born".  So a bad name isn't uncreative, but rather unfortunate for the poor sods who happen to live there

[Defendi]

Get Everchanging book of names.  Assign all the places real-world cultures, then generate the names and throw out all the stupid ones.  This way all your cultures have unique sounds.

[SamwiseSeven]

With the power of the internet, you can find lots of dead languages (or ones that aren't quite dead) online to use for your languages.

For my Marth setting, I combined lots of Native American words, with name generation websites, and then I threw my own made up words in the mix.

For me, it helped to have a list of words to use while naming things such as rivers, kingdoms, towns, cities, races, etc.

When you choose a language that was once spoken, it generally has a similar sound to it, so it sounds more real (well, it actually was real so that helps, hehe).

http://www.wordgumbo.com/index.htm

I used that site a lot while making up stuff for my world building project.

Enjoy.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Yeah... name generators help me out with place names as well as NPC names...
They can certainly help!

[kreider204]

Name generators, hmm, interesting.
I studied a bit of Latin and Greek, but I was afraid it'd be too cliche to just steal words from them, but mixing them up is a good idea.
Great thoughts, thanks!

[jolt]

Go here.  It has male and female names from all over the world.  Switch a few letters arounds, add a vowel or two and boom; instant name that doesn't sound stupid.

jolt

[kreider204]

Neat link, thanks!

[jasonbrisbane]

Hi,


I created my own campaign world based upon the flavour text for cyradon (before it was even called cyradon!).
I always wanted to use a world where the name "Westron" was used, but didnt want to us eit exactly. So I created the nations of Northron and Southron. Northon = bad, southron = good. Both contain a mix of races and people, so you can have human with lesser halfing and gryx if you want...

I use Everchanging book of Names (EBoN) to generate random names and I used them for my town names - Castlebottom Keep, Barrowdown, etc... Gave the world that "True fantasy" I was wanting....

The world I called Amylos,  - I dont know why,......

[madwizard1962]

Be original, be different, Just use and alpha-numeric naming sceam. Country A bigest city is A1, next bigest is A2 etc...

[Ido Tamir]

I just threw the ball into the players ground - told them to come up with a background that contains all the names of towns they know, all the kingdoms they visited..

Most of the time I get the "Huh?" response, but then they understand what I just gave them and I get tons of info..

The best part is that I actually USE it, then they go wild!

[SamwiseSeven]

I was in a campaign where each of us did a little worldbuilding with our character backgrounds.  The GM started with a generic map, and then fleshed it out as the campaign went along with our player's choices literally worldbuilding as we went.  It was fun.