How do you choose names for your cities/regions?

[Stray Cat]

So that is the question...

I find it incredibly taxing to come up with names that I am satisfied with for both my regions and my cities.  Thus, I am seeking inspiration from the community and ideas for naming sources and themes.  Also, if you wouldn't mind discussing how the names relate (or don't relate) to particular cities or regions that would be fantastic.   

OK...over to you community...   

Thanks.

Scott

[riiga]

I take the name of locations, places and buildings here in Sweden and mix them, or create new Swedish-sounding names.

Examples:

• There's two actual cities called Norrköping and Söderköping. Norr means North and Söder means South. I call two of my cities Österköping and Västerköping, which means East and West respectively.
• Deliberate misspellings - Tjernobyl (Chernobyl) becomes Tjärnåbyl
• Combinations - Koppar + berg = Kopparberg (Copper + mountain) which actually is the name of a Swedish town.

And as you can see in my signature, my MD and region is called The Österköping Region after the largest city in the region.

- riiga

[cogeo]

If you are playing on real world maps (as opposed to fantasy maps), it would be OK to simply name your region and city tiles with the real names of regions, cities, towns, (smaller) areas, suburbs, settlements etc. So I open Google Earth and take the actual names from there.

[Connor]

I tend to use places and road names in my local area as a basis for most of my city names.

[WC_EEND]

I tend to make up names and use real world names as well.

[bob56]

I find that the SCS name generator works quite well for me...One thing the game is good for

--Grif

[Tarkus]

Sometimes, particularly with some of my recent regions based on maps of real-world locations, I've been using real-world locale names, but with a little twist.  I've tended to do a little research on the actual locales beforehand, and I've found that many of them were nearly called something else . . . for example, my main region I'm working with now is based on Salem, Oregon.  The research I did turned up that Salem was originally to be named Chemeketa, so I used that for my region name.  I feel it allows me to take a little bit more liberty with the region to do it that way.

Other regions/cities I've done have varied quite a bit, from Latin words (Argentum, Arboris) to tool companies (Lenox), to rock musicians (Wakeman), to Genesis songs (Los Endos).  Odd combinations, I know.

-Alex

[TekindusT]

I like playing with real cities nicknames and they work fine with me when I'm inspired. For example, NYC is nicknamed as the "Big Apple". The Catalan translation for Big Apple is "Gran Poma". Just joining and fitting both words you get "Grampoma", which I find nice.

When I'm not inspired, I just watch my terrain and try to describe the geography. I've got a plain and I want a port city: "Plainsport" comes to my mind.

Also, as it has been said before; I think Greek and Latin words are nice to use

[sincitybaby]

I usually blend a famous person or thing with the type of terrain. For example there are cedar trees and bluffs in my capital city therefore I combine them to create Cedar Bluffs.

[canyonjumper]

When I'm stumped for names, I tend to open an atlas to a region that resembles the one I'm working on, and examine names that feel that they will work, and sometimes tweak them. I'm working on a new city tile, tentatively called Lynden. Lynden is a city south of the US border where I live. I might twist it like this: Lynsten.

                  -Jordan

[blade2k5]

I make up my own names for the most part.

[jmyers2043]

I've been playing SC4 since it first came out. I soon discovered that I was using the same names over and again. I've used maps. I've used the phone book as most cities or towns are named after somone ... like my home town of Jackson Michigan was named after President Andrew Jackson. I now use random name generators to help. 

Here are a couple of suggestions:

Fantasy Place Name Generator

http://nine.frenchboys.net/fantasyplace.php

This thread at SC4D has some links

http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=9096.msg280601#msg280601

I've been using this site the longest to find fresh, new, different names. They are sometimes long or silly but I usually shorten them and/or make slight changes. I used this site to name all of my GRVII cities.

http://www.mf2fm.com/RaToNaGe/

Good Luck with your city names

- Jim

[mightygoose]

jmyers, stop giving away trade secrets XD..... i also look at the etymology of place names and generate my own on the same principles.

[Stray Cat]

Wow...thanks for the discussion thus far.  There are some very interesting ways that names are generated here, that is for sure.  Some I wasn't aware of, some I had thought of, and some that I had tried without luck.  For some reason, I really hate looking at an atlas or a map, kinda feels like I am stealing the name if I copy it directly.  However I like the idea of combining two or three names...interesting.  I too often try to name a place by some of its attributes...sometimes it works well, sometimes not.  But, thanks to this thread, I have some more ideas and inspiration.

Thank you all for your responses to date.  If there are any other ideas I'd love to hear them too...

Cheers!

Scott

[Jmouse]

Wow, this discussion has given me a few new ideas, too!

I have a Millennium edition of the Texas  Almanac which yields some very colorful ideas. Where else could you find Cut and Shoot, Muleshoe and Slippery Rock?

If you find a city name you really like but you don't want to copy it exactly, you can always add a little something to it like Ft., San, St., Lake or Mt. One of my cities is called Boston Mill and another is Moose Jaw. Why? Because the names just popped into my head, and they fit in with my playing style. I have a small test region I named Mayflower because it's often a "first voyage" for experimental work. Also, I have a text doc on my desktop so I can jot down ideas as they occur to me.

I think the main thing is to not work yourself into a stew about it. Try to put it out of your mind - find something else to do for a while and allow your brain to do its work in its own time and in its own way.

Later...
Joan

[MandelSoft]

How do I choose names? I use different methods:

- Use RL city names: used only once at the city of Alphen.

- Using RL placenames in another way: Randstad (literally translation: Edge City) is a metropolian area in the Netherlands. So I name a city Randstad at the border of my country Imaginia. Other names I used this method are Morgenstond (city zone in The Hauge) and Westeinde (name of a palace in the Netherlands)

- Using other RL names: Use names that are in RL not connected to places. Maxtor (harddrive producer), Konrad (Boys/Mans name) Are (surface area unit) and Guilliano (Boys/Mans name) get their names this way.

- Tell something about the location. Zeeland (lit. translation: Sealand) lies at the coast, just like Landzicht (Land Sight) and Zandhoven. Zuidstad (South City) lies in the south. Jonkersmond (Jonkers Mouth) lies at the end of the stream the Jonker) and so on, and so on.

- Combine names: Nieuw-lander-veen, Post-dam, Andreas-burg, Hagen-furt, Sebes-haber, Franken-heim (combo of Mannheim and Frankfurt), Graan-velde, Duiven-dam, etc.

- Reshape names. For the Bundesrepublik Schellingen I use some germanised Dutch placenames:
   * Arnhem - Arnheim
   * Amersfoort - Amersfurt
   * Zoetermeer - Süßensee
I also reshaped RL names in Imaginia to the imaginary language Ngaska:
   * Al Andalus (the name of Spain at the time that Arabians ruled the place) - Al Andaluh
   * Barcelona - Barcelia
   * Arnhem - Arnom
   * Neustadt - Neisita

- Name your city after somebody or an MD:
   * Sebeshaber (sebes)
   * Shosaloza (Ennidi's MD)
   * Capporth Fillagh (after Bat's MD Capporth City)
   * Ripplejet Airport (Ripplejet)
   * Westerbeek Airport (named after my school, the Westerbeekcollege)
   * Monta Blamore (after the BLaM Team)

- Be creative and make completely new names. This is how I got the names Kapish, Blazor, Vernoy, Klaro, Konenbrag, etc.

To summarize this, you have enough methods to choose from!

Best,
Maarten

[Snakepit Dave]

Google "Place names"...you'll get all kinds of results...including sites that give you place names by county for every State in the U.S....just highlight and copy the list to Wordpad on your computer...toss out the names you don't like...re-work the ones you like...then save the list and just pull it up whenever you need a town name...once you use a name delete it and resave your list.  You'll have a bunch of names and never have the same one in any other region.

[kbieniu7]

For bigger cities I take the real names and try to put, or change some letters:
Kraków - Kolbrów
Poznań - Polbrań
Gdańsk - Grawańsk
Katowice - Patowice
(I also try to recreate them in small part)

For smaller towns and villages I try to invent names, which sounds like real names (in Polish it often ends at "-ów", "-yce"-"yn","-owo") e.g: Kostrzów, Zakamczyce, Bielskowo, Krypnicz, Sawinów
Or I take the real names: Siepraw, Nowy Korczyn, Siesławice, Krzyż.

But for regions I have lack of ideas and I took real names too, e.g: Galicja(this I used for the country name), Ponidzie, Pomorze.

[armagin]

I have a book, it is called "National Geographic Concise History Of The World" it sits on my desk and when I need a name I open it up and pick something interesting from a page.

I also like to have some sort of description of the place in question in my names as well by adding prefixes suffixes or such. a list as follows:

Port Perry
River Ford
Roberts Corners
Alger Park
Arthur Valley
Thomas Park
James Crossing
Orange Delta
Barber Pass

And the list goes on...

[jigsaw]

i have recycled a few names, but most of the time i think that i use a new name each time. i use the world around me to influence the choice of city names when i am starting a new city. ie: i had the bourne supremacy playing in the living room one afternoon when i was laying out my current region, and bang! i used surnames and names from the movie for 3 of the cities (Treadstone, Landy, Desh).

i use surnames, street names, television, magazines, the news etc. whatever names jump out at me at the time.