Fantasy Place Names

[Username17]

So, crowd sourcing question: which of the following fantasy place names sound like they are continents? Which sound like they are cities? Which sound like they are regions or kingdoms?

Nyxia; Chryse; Nalapur; Karasan; Guntapan; Megyet; Kuziria; Otontengar; Tangan-Nuru; Horkent; Lugobulak; Imnum; Sonkor; Hakkar; Ehzur; Fulda; Yabrid; Ualona; Urtona; Malach; Viandra; Ottu; Topith; Berlaria; Hammt; Eleocin; Bushuan; Quinay; Emenlop; Nomagachi; Henthipura; Fulzu; Gengsu; Minindo


It is unfortunately true that fiction has to be more believable that reality. In our actual world, we gave the continents pretty shitty names. For fuck's sake, we called the really cold one "Antarctica."

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Continents
Ehzur
Eleocin
Emenlop
Fulzu
Horkent
Malach
Minindo
Ottu

Kingdoms/Regions
Berlaria
Bushuan
Fulda
Hakkar
Hammt
Henthipura
Kuziria
Nalapur
Nyxia
Quinay
Ualona
Urtona
Viandra
Yabrid

Cities
Chryse
Gengsu
Guntapan
Imnum
Karasan
Lugobulak
Megyet
Nomagachi
Otontengar
Sonkor
Tangan-Nuru
Topith

[hyzmarca]

Nixia: Country
Chryse: Continent or City
Nalapur: City
Karasan: Country or City
Guntapan: Country
Megyet: Country
Kuzria: Country or Continent
Otontengar: Any
Tagan-Nuru: City or Region
Hornknet: Any
Lugobulak: Country
Imnum: Country
Sonkor: City
Hakkar: City
Ehzur: City or Country
Fulda: Country or City
Yabrid: Country
Ualona: Continent or Country
Urtona: Continent or Region
Malach: Region
Viandra: City or Country
Topith: City
Berlaria: Any
Hammit: City or Country
Eleocin: City
Bushaun: Country or Region
Emenlop: City
Nomagachi:City
Henthipura: Any
Fulzu:Region
Gengsu: Any
Minindo: Country or Region

[Whipstitch]

I'd drop Nyxia and Hakkar because Onyxia and Hakkar were vanilla WoW raid bosses and you likely want a fresher start than that.

Tangan-Nuru is a city-state that preferably grew out of twin cities or allied tribes--it's kinda nice when the hyphen can just go ahead and mean what it usually means.

[Chamomile]

I'm listing some of these multiple times because a couple of them I really couldn't decide one way or another which of two categories they best fit into.

Continent:
Tangan-Nuru
Urtona
Malach
Bushuan
Gengsu

Region:
Nyxia
Nalapur
Karasan
Guntapan
Megyet
Tangan-Nuru
Horkent
Imnum
Hakkar
Ualona
Urtona
Malach
Viandra
Topith
Berlaria
Eleocin
Nomagachi
Gengsu

City:
Chryse
Kuziria
Otontengar
Horkent
Lugobulak
Imnum
Sonkor
Ehzur
Yabrid
Malach
Ottu
Hammt
Quinay
Emenlop
Nomagachi
Henthipura
Minindo

Seems wrong for any kind of geographic feature (seriously were these names randomly generated?):
Fulda
Fulzu

[talozin]

Seems wrong for any kind of geographic feature (seriously were these names randomly generated?):
Fulda

Ironically ...

[Laertes]

Nyxia - Region. Also sounds like a mixture of Greek and Latin, which is verboten.
Chryse - City.
Nalapur - City.
Karasan - Region. An Arabic rendition of a Latin word.
Guntapan - Region.
Megyet - Region.
Kuziria - Country. Sounds like a Latinate rendering of a Turkic word, which is a good thing. Loanwords add verisimilitude.
Otontengar - Clearly a region. Altaic?
Tangan-Nuru - City, probably eponymous. Sounds Polynesian but that might just be me.
Horkent - City.
Lugobulak - Oromo? Regardless, it's clear the name of a mountain range.
Imnum - City.
Sonkor - An ethnicity. If we aren't allowed those, then a region.
Hakkar - Region. A Turkic rendition of an Arabic word.
Ehzur - Country. Due to being a Turkic word, it evokes a sparse region where nomads live.
Fulda - An actual town in Germany.
Yabrid - Region.
Ualona - Country; the home of the Ualon people. Probably a corruption.
Urtona - Country; the region conquered by King Tona.
Malach - Don't use this one. It's too close to a common Hebrew demon's name.
Viandra - Region.
Ottu - City, or singular location. "We were three days past Ottu when we realised what had happened."
Topith - City.
Berlaria - Continent. Annoyingly Latinate.
Hammt - City.
Eleocin - Continent. Sounds phonetically Greek but isn't written in a normal Greek fashion.
Bushuan - City. A Mandarin rendering of an English word.
Quinay - An ethnicity. If we aren't allowed those, then a region. Sounds Tagalog.
Emenlop - Don't use this one. Yes, it sounds authentic, but it also sounds silly.
Nomagachi - City.
Henthipura - City, but that's because "ipura" is a city suffix.
Fulzu - Continent. Sounds like a semi-Chinese rendition of a German word.
Gengsu - Country. A Mandarin rendering of an Arabic word.
Minindo - Region. A real-life person's name in Indonesia.

[Chamomile]

Seems wrong for any kind of geographic feature (seriously were these names randomly generated?):
Fulda

Ironically ...

Sure, but as Frank already mentioned, fiction must be held to a much higher standard of verisimilitude than reality.

[hyzmarca]

Seems wrong for any kind of geographic feature (seriously were these names randomly generated?):
Fulda

Ironically ...

Sure, but as Frank already mentioned, fiction must be held to a much higher standard of verisimilitude than reality.

Just create all the languages that these things were named in. That gives you a lot of verisimilitude.

[Dogbert]

Continent:
Nyxia
Chryse
Fulda
Viandra

Kingdom:
Nalapur
Karasan
Horkent
Hakkar
Yabrid
Malach
Berlaria
Hamt
Fulzu
Genngsu

Region/town:
Guntapan
Megyet
Kuziria
Ototengar
Tangan-Nuru
Logobulak
Imnum
Sonkor
Ualona
Urtona
Ottu
Tophit
Eleocin
Bushuan
Quinay
Emenlop
Nomagachi
Henthipura
Minido

[fectin]

Nah, you want to create the older, dead languages that the modern languages are built on, and pilfer those for names. Then the modern languages give you streets and such.

[Lokathor]

These almost all sound like they could be any kind of place with the following exceptions:
*Nyxia - this one is really good, and should be reserved for a continent.
*Chryse - I don't like this name under any situation.
*Guntapan - Sounds like a Germanic city.
*Tangan-Nuru - City
*The rest could all be basically any continent / kingdom / region / feature / city.

[deaddmwalking]

Organized by where it seemed the most appropriate by 'gut'. Explanations added afterward on second review.

Continents
Urtona
Viandra
Minindo
Ehzur

It seems that continents tend to have soft sounds in the real word. America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antartica, Africa - only Australia and Africa have two or more consonants without a vowel between them. I'm thinking that the ones I chose for continents were subconsciously guided by that principle.


Cities
Nyxia
Karasan
I would expect the name to modify to Kurasan over time. I live next to a city called 'Maryville' but people around here pronounce it mer-a-ville (mer like mermaid). I could see this as a desert city for sure.
Megyet
Kuziria
Nomagachi
This sounds Japanese, and very similar to 'nodachi', a weapon well known enough to have been included in Pathfinder. I'd probably avoid using this one for that reason.
Otontengar
I'd hope that in the originating language some portion of this means 'great'. Maybe like 'o=great' 'tonten=king of kings' and 'gar=city'. Some type of capital built of an empire - probably long since fallen. I'd get a Persian type of feel from this.
Tangan-Nuru
I like the suggestion that this is a conglomeration of more than one city - possibly divided by a river, a al Minneapolis-St.Paul
Imnum
This strongly resembles the word 'imam' to me, which might be a good reason to avoid ti. I'm also not particularly fond of an m/n together. I assume that it is supposed to be IMM-numb, but it isn't particularly easy to say.
Sonkor
Hakkar
Malach
Topith
Hammt
Quinay
For some reason, this strikes me as an Arabian analogue port city.
Gengsu
This sounds Chinese in origin to me. It might be too similar to 'ginsu' as in 'ginsu knife'.

Regions/kingdoms
Chryse
Nalapur
Guntapan
Henthipura
This three (Nalapur, Guntapan, Henthipura) strike me as appropriate for a South Asian/Indian region.
Horkent
Lugobulak
Fulda
Yabrid
Ualona
Ottu
I could see all five of the above (Lugobulak, Fulda, Yabrid, Ualona, Ottu) being in an area of successive waves of cultural domination similar to the Balkans.
Berlaria
Of all the names, this one seems the most appropriate for a 'Western Europe' analogue.
Eleocin
Bushuan
Emenlop
This one sounds Egyptian to me.
Fulzu

[erik]

I'm with Lokathor, only moreso- I'd strike those 4 from the definite list as well. Any of them could be any of them.

I fail at this. I read them in my mind the city "X", the region "X", the continent "X", etc. and they all sound applicable. I guess I don't associate names with sounding like only a city, region or continent, unless it obviously has "city" or "burg" in the name, or a descriptor like "territory" in the name or the like.

Birmingham
New York
Germany
Yangtze
Europe
Seine
Africa
Guam
Reno
Nile

I dunno. Even with these I can still see them being any of the options. I don't think there's any lexical indicator for what type of area a name refers to, since names are so portable.

[Koumei]

Cities: Chryse, Guntapan, Megvet, Ontontengar, Horkent, Lugobulak, Ehzur, Topith, Hammt, Eleocin, Quinay, Emenlop, Nomagachi, Henthipura
Kingdoms: Nyxia, Kuziria, Tangan-Nuru, Nalapur, Imnum, Hakkar, Fulda, Yabrid, Ualona, Malach, Berlaria, Bushuan, Gengsu, Fulzu
Continents: Karasan, Viandra, Sonkor, Urtona, Ottu, Minindo

[OgreBattle]

Any of them can be anything, I don't get a strong feeling from them. If they were presented on a map I could accept any of them as a city/continent/region. Even novels can come with a black and white printed map on the first page.

[Foxwarrior]

Remember, all continent names either start and end with 'a', or start and end with 'e'.

[shadzar]

This will be done in order of the provided types giving hierarchy to them in the order they were asked about: continents, cities, regions, kingdoms. so if it ends up a kingdom, then it just didn't sound to fit for the others...

continents:
Malach
Ualona
Berlaria
Chryse
Nalapur (sounds almost Gulliver in nature, like Brobdingnag or Lilliput)

cities:
Tangan-Nuru
Hammt
Horkent
Bushuan
Otontengar

regions:
Nyxia
Nomagachi
Gengsu
Ottu
Lugobulak (, The)
Karasan

kingdoms:
Fulzu
Viandra
Quinay
Sonkor


the rest just couldn't connect to either of the 4 provided types, so didn't jsut dump things into kingdom because it was the last one. maybe they are all hamlets or small villages?

[Dean]

When naming fantasy regions I prefer to use heavily descriptive titles so that the map can actually transmit some information. I prefer names like "The Shard Isles" "Bane Mire" "Frostfell" and so on. Failing that I like to at least give a place a name that is obviously indicative of a culture of some kind. If the place is inspired by Norway I throw some umlauts on it, if it's inspired by China I call it Huanyang or whatever.

I think calling a region "Logobulak" is less valuable than just calling it "The Land of Black Ice" because that looks cooler on a map and means something to a player.

[zeruslord]

Nyxia - either city or country
Chryse - country, I guess
Nalapur - city? but definitely feels south asian
Karasan - dunno, but Arabian-sounding
Guntapan - city, most def. probably full of goblins, or maybe Conanesque ape-worshipping racist caricatures
Megyet - city or region, kinda slavic-sounding, probably has men in little furry hats on ponies
Kuziria - the region Megyet is in
Otontengar - I can't imagine anybody saying this in a sentence.
Tangan-Nuru - dunno, maybe a region or subregion?
Horkent - region, probably somebody's breadbasket
Lugobulak - goblin city
Imnum - region or city, or better yet a city-state
Sonkor, Hakkar, Ehzur - cities or city-states, have ziggurats, war amongst themselves
Fulda - city or country
Yabrid - city
Ualona - region or country
Urtona - city
Malach - in the Sonkor-Hakkar-Ehzur ziggurats bucket
Viandra - city, probably
Ottu - dunno
Topith - city
Berlaria - country, has knights
Hammt - city?
Eleocin - dunno
Bushuan - city?
Quinay - port city or small region
Emenlop - region/country
Nomagachi - city, might have an eponymous region
Henthipura - country
Fulzu - I have no idea
Gengsu - city
Minindo - city

[rapa-nui]

Continent
Sonkor
Fulda
Bushuan
Hakkar
Topith
Minindo

Region/Kingdom
Nalapur
Nomagachi
Gengsu
Urtona
Fulzu
Viandra
Nyxia
Chryse
Guntapan
Berlaria
Kuziria
(if it ends in '-aria' or '-iria', I automatically place into a region/nation designation)

City
Karasan
Otontengar
Tangan-Nuru
Megyet
Horkent
Ualona
Henthipura
Hammt
Quinay


Just Terrible, Do Not Use (sound super made up, no real propensity for assignation into a category)
Lugobulak
Emenlop
Imnum

Sounds More like a person's name
Ehzur
Malach
Yabrid
Ottu
Eleocin (elvish sounding)

[tussock]

Nyxia;
Kuziria;
Berlaria; Countries, big open plains ones.

Ualona;
Urtona; These are your continents, but meh.

Viandra;
Henthipura; Old cities, rebuilt. New-Henth even.

Yabrid; Little country to the south. City-state.

Chryse; Holy city, or frozen continent. Same difference.

Topith; City.

Nomagachi; City, in Japan, named after Mr. Nomagachi.

Malach;
Lugobulak; Cities, plains.

Imnum; Not a real place, but spoken of as a lost island.

Karasan;
Guntapan;
Bushuan; Cities in Quinay.

Eleocin; Noone likes elves.

Minindo; It's the big island in the island empire.

Emenlop; MNLOP? Really? Did I miss ABCDE?

Otontengar;
Hakkar;
Sonkor;
Nalapur;
Ehzur; Bunch of cities in neighboring countries.

Megyet; Pass as a country I suppose.

Horkent; City.

Hammt; $20, same as in town.

Tangan-Nuru; Just like Nuru, only in Tungan.
Ottu; Tall bloke, big ears, missing a thumb.

Fulda;
Fulzu;
Gengsu; Best city names yet, patterns. Westham, Wessex, Sussex.

Quinay; Country. Big one.

[nockermensch]

So, crowd sourcing question: which of the following fantasy place names sound like they are continents? Which sound like they are cities? Which sound like they are regions or kingdoms?

Nyxia; Chryse; Nalapur; Karasan; Guntapan; Megyet; Kuziria; Otontengar; Tangan-Nuru; Horkent; Lugobulak; Imnum; Sonkor; Hakkar; Ehzur; Fulda; Yabrid; Ualona; Urtona; Malach; Viandra; Ottu; Topith; Berlaria; Hammt; Eleocin; Bushuan; Quinay; Emenlop; Nomagachi; Henthipura; Fulzu; Gengsu; Minindo


It is unfortunately true that fiction has to be more believable that reality. In our actual world, we gave the continents pretty shitty names. For fuck's sake, we called the really cold one "Antarctica."

-Username17

I'm with Lokathor and erik. It's very hard to see if any of these names works best as city / region / continent name.

That being said, whenever you append "ia" to the ending of a word you automatically makes it look like a country / region name. This is the only strong feeling I have about these names, and this is assuming we're talking about a default pseudo-european culture with names that imply a Latin substratum. If I see a fantasy map for a pseudo-Japan place where region names mostly end in "achi", that would be totally alright.

[Judging__Eagle]

Continent
Ualona, Kuziria, Imnum, Ehzur, Malach, Topith, Fulzu

Region
Nyxia, Emenlop, Karasan, Otontengar, Horkent, Sonkor, Fulda, Hammt, Quinay

Kingdom/Empire
Nalapur, Gengsu, Guntapan, Hakkar, Lugobulak, Yabrid, Urtona, Viandra, Berlaria, Henthipura

City
Chryse, Nomagachi, Megyet, Minindo, Tangan-Nuru, Ottu, Eleocin, Emenlop, Minindo


How I rationalize my choices, after blindly sorting them by their sound and feel:

Continents feel better with "shorter" names. Subdued sounding words mostly.

Regions feel better with abrupt, but also reversely compound-word, sounding names.

Kingdoms/Empires sound better with extended, and pretentious, sounding words. Although short words with more than one syllable are reasonable.

Cities feel like they vary more; both short/abrupt names; and longer/compound and pretentious names.

[name_here]

Nyxia totally sounds like a necromancer empire/cursed wasteland to me.