OpenGeofiction
We need better and interesting ocean names in OGF. It least, that’s what I think.
Especially when it comes to new continents. Would be quite strange to have a new country at the east coast of the new continents, at the coast of the “Western Ocean”. That’s one thing. The other thing is that the current names are boring.
I don’t want to make proposals here right now. But let’s have a look at where the ocean names on earth come from:
ATLANTIC OCEAN see here
PACIFIC OCEAN see here, last paragraph of introduction
INDIAN OCEAN (named after the respective subcontinent)
So we have greek mythology, geopolitical/”geoeconomical” events in combination with local circumstances and a region the borders the ocean as “namegivers”. Other possible sources for names could be (in my point of view): names of Ulethan explorers or names of historical trading routes, geological circumstances, references to form/size/world location of the ocean (maybe in a very old language) and surely many more.
What do you think? What’s your opinion? What are your proposals for finding better ocean names for the OGF world?
Best regards joschi81
Discussion
Comment from tule00 on 8 October 2015 at 13:22
If new continents are like the “new world” (not known by Ulethans in ancient times), Western ocean can keep its name. I think it could be an interesting story.
As for other continents, I really have no idea.
Regards
Comment from Demuth on 8 October 2015 at 14:03
I agree that Eastern and Western oceans are going to be not just boring but inaccurate names, at least they will be once the new world opens up!
Not sure I have such great alternatives, but here goes:
Central Ocean: Great South Ocean (since it’s mostly south)
Western Ocean: Abyssia Ocean (Latin - deep ocean)
Eastern Ocean: I’ll come back on this one!
Comment from isleño on 8 October 2015 at 17:01
These were suggestions I had earlier for the Central Ocean. If it was named by adventurers from the north, it may have seemed “warm” or “sunny” to them:
Comment from Portopolis on 8 October 2015 at 17:55
I like Serenic Ocean sounds nice. I also like Calian but what about Calidan instead?
Comment from Demuth on 8 October 2015 at 18:37
I really like the idea of taking the name from OGF mythologies/peoples. Some more suggestions:
Eppec Ocean (from the Řots god Eppes, god of protection and travelers) for the Eastern Ocean Aulaumic Ocean (from the Karolian creation goddess Aulame) for the Eastern Ocean Tionic Ocean (from an ancient group of people in the Ardisphere) for the Eastern Ocean Caolian Ocean (from an ancient group of people in Castellan) for the Central Ocean Borawian Ocean (from the word for green in Mahalic)
(Also, you could go Latin with East and West - Orientalia Ocean and Occidentalia Ocean or some version of those)
Comment from deltanz on 8 October 2015 at 21:48
I like the ideia of mythology inspired names better. Using Latin to name things is something we do in real world. I really think OGF should have a totally different approach. I already regret naming my country Neo Delta, for example, too Earthly. :/
Comment from Luciano on 9 October 2015 at 00:51
I like the mythology approach proposed by Demuth - it can also encourage the authors of those mythologies to do more work on them, filling them in with details.
One small correction - the ancient group in Ardisphere (Gwynian subcontinent) was TLON (with L, not i). And actually, I cribbed TLöN off a story by Jorge Luis Borges, in which Tlön is a fictional country that becomes so popular it begins to influence the real world. It seemed appropriate for OGF.
I really like the sound of “Aulamic”.
Comment from Demuth on 9 October 2015 at 06:15
Actually, using Tionic instead of Tlonic would be exactly how things get named: people mishearing or adapting it to how it sounds to them (København is what Danes call Copenhagen, for instance, or Florence and Firenze). Not to mention map mix ups (Greenland and Iceland).
Anyway, I sense a period of name nomination and voting coming up soon ;-)
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 9 October 2015 at 12:17
As imagined by Borges, as I understood it, if his Tlön is a fictional place within a fictional place (the place being ‘Uqbar’) that fictional world is ‘Orbis Tertius’ - the third orb. So could one of the OGF world Oceans reference this e.g. ‘Oceanus Tertius’, ‘Oceanus Orbis’?
Aulamic I like. Equates to Latin ‘hall’ or ‘my hall’ in some ways? Appropriate for naming an Ocean discovered first by Latin speakers. If it has meanings for other people too, so much the better!
Comment from Sarepava on 10 October 2015 at 11:26
Whilst it’s great that Aulame is a popular choice, it implies that Karolian mythology is well-known enough in the wider world to become the official name of a geographic feature. However, there was only really mainstream interest in the national mythology from the mid-nineteenth century in the Nationalist movement, and it’s likely that the oceans would have been named before then. However, we might devise some scheme whereby all the world’s mythologies were incorporated. Perhaps an international committee of the world’s geographers met in c.1850 and came up with official names for all the seas, rather like the creation of the Prime Meridian and the invention of the metre. This might have been necessary because perhaps before this date every country used its vernacular name and there was confusion amongst mariners and cartographers trying to create maps for the new intercontinental shipping lines. Of course there would be the more influential and famous geographers pushing for their own country’s mythologies, and all the political baggage of the decisions made…
Can I create a wiki article on the 18xx International Congress of Geographers?
Comment from histor on 10 October 2015 at 22:25
@ Sarepava = Can I create a wiki article on the 18xx International Congress of Geographers?
I am sure, you can. Will you? 1867?
This international congress can discuss the names of the oceans. I think, the “congress” can discuss one week or one month on the talk-page of the article. And then the names will put in the article as the new names.
Indeed we have had a lot of discussions about the names of gulfs and bays in the past. This names are in a lot of wiki-articles. So I think, this names should not be changed again.
Comment from isleño on 10 October 2015 at 23:06
I have to say, I don’t quite understand… We’re talking about Ingerish names, which would have been used for centuries by generations of Ingerish explorers, traders, colonists, etc. For me, it’s hard to imagine the British, in 1867, saying okay, we’ll stop calling the Atlantic the Atlantic, and we’ll adopt the name of a Finnish goddess instead, for the sake of international standardization.
Wouldn’t it be more natural for us to choose names in the language of an ancient seafaring empire (speaking something like Latin?) and then the different modern language groups can either base their names on evolved versions of those Latin-esque names, or ignore the Latin influence altogether in favor of a native name?
Comment from Luciano on 11 October 2015 at 00:27
If we DO adopt “Aulamic” we don’t have to assume it came from a Karolian goddess (although that seems no less plausible than the idea of an ocean’s name coming from a minor mountain in Mauritania - see etymology of “Atlantic”).
We could assume some linguistic coincidence just as easily. I could suppose Aulamic coming from Greek αὐλή (dwelling, over-night) - since the ocean is “home” of the Sun or some-such.
Anyway, to repeat what I said in an admin thread: personally, I have no problems with the generic-seeming Central, Western, Eastern. If people really don’t like them, we could “hellenize” or “latinize” them easily enough (e.g. Mesic Dysic Anatolic <- μέση δύση ανατολή - yes, “Anatolia” just means “Eastern”).
Comment from clik on 11 October 2015 at 13:05
Tell me if you want to “hellenize” some names. I would be glad if Egani can be the origin of a few of them, as it is (I think) the only country really related to greece and with a history full of explorers. I agree with isleño. We should give historical reasons to the names depending on the language of the explorers or inhabitants, and then make ingerish versions of them eventually.
Comment from Sarepava on 11 October 2015 at 23:32
isleño, that was kind of what I was pointing out. Oceans and mountain ranges get named in the 14th-18th centuries, when in real world ancient Greece and Rome were in vogue. I suppose rather like Pacific oceans could be given ‘characteristic’ names such as Celestial Ocean, Sea of Mercy/Mare Pietate, colours, etc
Comment from isleño on 13 October 2015 at 08:58
@Sarepava — Yeah, I think we’re on the same page. :-) As Luciano points out, there are ways for oceans to get named after something obscure (though I’m pretty sure “Mount Atlas” refers to the Atlas Mountains). At the end of the day, I think we all agree that whatever story is created for a name—if a story is created at all—should feel plausible and natural, whether it’s for an obvious name or an unlikely one.
Nice job on the Tips for Using Images wiki page, btw. I love it.