Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Locales: Generating Place Names

 Dear Reader,

It is possible to spend hours on developing language for your work. If you find this relaxing and productive, go for it. I'm still finding my footing in that arena. You don't, however, have to come up with your own language to name places. If you take a moment to look at the naming of places in the real world, you'll come to realize that some of the names are pretty dumb once you translate them out of the language they're written in.

For example, in England, there are many rivers named 'Avon' or have the name 'Avon' in them. This is because of the Romans and Celts having some communication difficulties. Avon, in the ancient Celtic dialect spoken in those regions of England, simply means river. Thus the Avon river is literally River-river. 'Tor' is another one from the Celts which simply means a high place. So, it's possible that exotic sounding name you were thinking would sound really cool as you mash together things from two different languages translates to something really simple, possibly dumb.

If you focus on landmarks and historical events, you find it easier to name places. For example, there's a river in the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar that is known as the White River because it has many rapids in it, hence a good deal of white water. I've taken that and translated it (roughly) into Gaelic to use as the place name. Why Gaelic? Because the people of that region are based on the Gaels and I've decided that their language is in many ways parallel to Gaelic. Google translate isn't the best source for translations, I will be honest, but when you lack a dictionary between the two languages it works in a pinch.

There are place name generators on the internet. I've used them a few times when I have gotten stumped. Just remember to keep a log of your place names and a rough description of the location. Nothing's worse then having to rewrite an entire chapter because you messed up the setting details. (Not that I have ever had to do that before. ;) )

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