So, I decided I wanted to create my own campaign world. Been playing D&D and other tabletop games for 20 years, but never created my own world. Slowly, over the last couple years its been itching at me to finally just build my own world. Probably due to all the wonderful stories told about various players gaming within a setting for years and that sense of belonging to their own fictional world. I want to create a world that is mine, and can be expanded over the years.

But, I realized, I suck at names. I didn't think I used to be, back when I first started. (Full disclosure: I suffered a TBI during a combat tour, which I think resulted in my creative focus becoming dull. Anyway, enough excuses...)

So, I wanted to know how everyone comes up with names for their locations. Does anyone use other languages to create names, or does everyone just use compound words like 'Blackwood Citadel' or 'Gravekeep'?

I have a pile of books on my shelf that never got used. So I have been mixing and matching items to create a campaign, but wanted to rename everything to create my own world and feel. I got a little bit of Temple of Elemental Evil, some Barrowmaze elements, Keep on the Shadowfell, The Darkening of Mirkwood, and I just plan to use parts of the Nentir Vale as an outline. All of that is essentially my first campaign.

I just want to try and come up with some names to give my world a certain feel. Any ideas would be great, and any insight into what you do to create names would be fantastic.

I guess it depends on the flavor of your campaign.  I tend to use historic names for larger cities (6k or more inhabitants) and for the town name it after the local noble in power/burgher's family.   I have a series of history books, but with the internet, pulling up a map of ancient greece, republican/imperial rome, or Medieval Europe/Asia/Africa are my go to methods.   One thing I used to love about the Mongoose Conan RPG it would have lists of common names for each race/culture as well as a list of possible village/town names for regions/nations on the map for the small areas not on the big map.

Compound words are the best - they actually mean stuff!

Here's a campaign map I did:



I don't really know how I name stuff, except I try to avoid string-of-made-up-syllables. On the map above, a lot derives from local points of interest, people, features. There's a Maiden Stream because of the nearby Nunnery. Blackraven because I wanted a sinister Guy of Gisborne type character and named him Sir Thomas Blackraven. Virdin's Foot implies the last King, Virdin, set foot there. The Roadhouse Inn was inspired by Patrick Swayze movie 'Roadhouse'. The Fallen Halls was just a generic dwarf ruin name, just today I decided to use Forge of Fury for it with a bit of reskinning.

Compound words, as S'mon points out, help a lot. I also tend to use a lot of descriptive terminology (Blackwood Forest, The Midlands, etc.) as well as placeholder names when I don't have anything I like yet. Placeholder names are very important when coming up with material so you can keep writing and come back to it later. Sometimes you might even draw inspiration from what you've written or from stuff you researched while writing it. But at least you wrote something you can flesh out later. I used to get stuck on names as well and didn't use placeholders, and the end result was that I didn't write anything, and then I didn't have a name OR the stuff I wanted to write about.

A lot of online resources sometimes help--stuff like Fantasy Name generators and things like that. Even if you don't like any of the names they can sometimes get your mind running. I also research cultures and old civilizations similar to the stuff I'm writing about for my settings and use modified or invented names that sound like them. I once came up with "Hassir", derived from Assyria, when trying to come up with a name Persian or Arabic inspired people, while I was researching stuff on Mesopotamia and other Middle Eastern civilizations. Or Atreyans, derived from Atreus (father of Agamemnon, from the Iliad) when trying to come up with a name for Greek inspired peoples.

I try to pick shit that sounds cool, but not too cool.

Yes, like S'mon said.  In addition, if the places are old, I'll contract the words.  For example, in my current campaign, something that in the mists of time was once "Farmer Wod's Ford" is now the ruin "Wodford".  It's still near the only good place to cross the Tar River for miles in either direction, but now that there are no residents, the contracted name has stuck.  The name has lasted because people need to refer to the ford somehow.

When I'm arriving at names like this, I always start with the compound words, then I add in the contractions or the fantasy sounding whatever for how that got munged into "Common".  If it was originally named by a group of dwarves, it will have some kind of dwarven sounding name (usually Norse for me), for example.  Or, it will have the translation into "Common", which is why the more visited dwarven towns in my current campaign have names like "Iron Hold", while what to the dwarves is the real center of the community underground has some dwarven name that probably isn't on your human map.  People keep calling that "Iron Hold" too, and the dwarves are quite happy to not correct them.  Sometimes even dwarves in the party.

Greetings!

Well, I love using history books, as well as special dictionaries for various cultures. I make extensive use of huge world atlases, as well as regional atlases. I carefully make lists of ethnic names and terms, as well as their own towns, cities, and features. Paying special attention to suffixes and prefixes. Besides making up such large lists, I then add or change a letter or prefix or suffix, and create more. From a variety of such techniques, I then use a blend of real-world naming and linguistics, plus original creation, to create extensive customized lists of hundreds, even thousands, of names, usually divided into two categories; City Names, and Features Names. I have done this process where I have huge lists of cultural sets, from English, Celtic, Norse, Germanic, Slavic, Roman, Greek, African, Middle Eastern, Indian, Central Asian, South East Asian, and Chinese. As well as cultural list sets for Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, Lizard Men, Orcs and Beastmen. For each type of culture, I have hundreds of names for towns and cities, and then hundreds of names for features, from mountain ranges, hills, forests, woods, lakes, rivers, marshes, swamps and seas, as well as islands.

It is a time-consuming process, though as I have largely completed it, I have a cultural resource that is diverse and robust, and provides precisely what I need to create cultures, societies, places and kingdoms within my World of Thandor.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Rule 1: ALWAYS use common descriptive names. Look into the history of any exotic sounding place name and you'll discover its just some really common word in a language that used to be spoken there. Paris ultimately means "place of the boat people" because that's who some tribe told the Romans lived along the Seine River (and "Seine" means fishing net... so Paris on the Seine ultimately means "place of the boat people on the river used for net fishing.").

Rule 1A: how extensive the description is depends on whether the name comes from a local or an outsider. Locally derived names are almost always LESS descriptive than when named by a foreigner. Most local names boil down to "THE Lake" or "THE Hill" (as in the only lake or hill the locals interact with on a regular basis) with a descriptor added only if needed (i.e. The BIG Lake and The Little Lake).

Foreigners are the ones to append more descriptive elements to the names as they already have their own "The Lake" and so add to it, but even here it's going to be the simplest name they can find for it... and if there's locals with a significantly different language they'll probably just use their name for it followed by their name for the common feature (which is how you get place names that mean "hill hill" and the like).

Rule 2: If the place hasn't been named recently by someone using the common tongue of the campaign region then take the common descriptive name and run it through Google Translate. Use a language your native tongue has taken a lot of loan-words from (ex. Spanish, French, Latin and German for English) for the equivalent of "named carried over from older version of the language" and then go progressively further from that root the more foreign you want it to sound (ex. Elven words in my world are actually derived from translating them into Thai and then simplifying the transliteration; ex. the elven capital is El-Phara... El is their endonym that means "The People" and Phara is a simplified transliteration of one of the Thai words for city... so City of The People; with Elf being a shortened version of "El-Pharan" that humans use in the same way you might say "Yanks" instead of "Yankies").

Rules 1, 1A and 2 have served me very well naming not just places, but names for gods (most are just what their portfolio covers... ex. Both Zeus and Jupiter descend from 'Deus Phater' or Sky Father) and exotic weapons (claymore is just 'big sword" in the native tongue).

Whatever sounds cool. I tend to use pre-published settings (Starfinder, Dark Sun, etc) and try to come up with names that fit the setting.

For my homebrew Ravenloft type setting, I named the central town Ravenshire, because I'm so goddamn original.

Thank you, everyone. These have been helpful.

Great examples. I appreciate it.

For areas where folks speak the primary campaign language, which I always represent as English, start with what the the place was originally called, e.g. "Bob's Castle."  Mutate or shorten it a bit:  "Bossle."  Apply the name to whatever is there now:  "To get to inn, follow Bossle Road for about 3 hours."

For areas with languages that are not going to be represented by English, first define the language a bit.  The most common vowels and consonants in English are E & A, and R, T, & N respectively.  Come up with a list for the language.  Frex, for Elvish I picked long A and long O, and c, d, and l.  Make up a few words that will be commonly used, with those sounds dominating.  Then, if you want, go to the above method.  I've found it's not always necessary because the names at this point often sound exotic and consistent enough to satisfy me.

Quote from: SHARK;1139048Greetings!

Well, I love using history books, as well as special dictionaries for various cultures. I make extensive use of huge world atlases, as well as regional atlases. I carefully make lists of ethnic names and terms, as well as their own towns, cities, and features. Paying special attention to suffixes and prefixes. Besides making up such large lists, I then add or change a letter or prefix or suffix, and create more. From a variety of such techniques, I then use a blend of real-world naming and linguistics, plus original creation, to create extensive customized lists of hundreds, even thousands, of names, usually divided into two categories; City Names, and Features Names. I have done this process where I have huge lists of cultural sets, from English, Celtic, Norse, Germanic, Slavic, Roman, Greek, African, Middle Eastern, Indian, Central Asian, South East Asian, and Chinese. As well as cultural list sets for Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, Lizard Men, Orcs and Beastmen. For each type of culture, I have hundreds of names for towns and cities, and then hundreds of names for features, from mountain ranges, hills, forests, woods, lakes, rivers, marshes, swamps and seas, as well as islands.

It is a time-consuming process, though as I have largely completed it, I have a cultural resource that is diverse and robust, and provides precisely what I need to create cultures, societies, places and kingdoms within my World of Thandor.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That sounds like something you should publish

Not sure I have anything to add but pour over maps of language that you understand and you'll see all of these things reinforced.  Drive around locally grab street names they usually make great Village names, at least in the suburbs.

Pick more obscure languages, or at least languages your crew isn't fluent in - and make sure the NPC names match/sound culturally similar.

My current Homebrew World Folia, is itself a Greek word meaning nest, has the dragons that feature prominently I represent their language and names in Greek. They much older culture that's partnered with or controlling (depends who you ask) a melting pot of Gaelic and Celtic culture.

Not going to lie I don't use a lot of the Welsh names, leaning into more Celtic names.

Quote from: Mishihari;1139252That sounds like something you should publish

Greetings!

You think so, my friend? Well, thank you for your encouragement! I haven't thought of that before. It has been such a labour, with pages and pages of hand-written names. So much work! It has been an invaluable tool in providing a rich, in-depth framework from which to create culturally distinct geography and kingdoms!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

FWIW I'd buy a pdf of that Shark; as a matter-of-fact, your world sounds more interesting than alot of the commercial ones I've seen, the little bit you've shared (relatively speaking) sounds better than the blurbs on DTRPG.

Side note - Greetings from an old squid (Avionics Tech, NAS JAX) who used to wear a high-and-tight and howl at the moon with his jarhead friends (and had his nose busted three times along the way).