OpenGeofiction
Hi, a new capital in Riko is in the development. It is a coastal city, with a canal that reaches to the Central Ocean. I have problem with naming this city. I follow the trend and ask for suggestions for a new name of this capital.
The name has to be english/ingerish, as I have had a colonial past with Ingerland. An easy and fast name (6-8 letters) like “London”, would be perfect but it has to be original. Maybe something referring to the city’s location. However, a too generic name would make it less real. (ᵔᴥᵔ)
(don’t mind if the new coast isn’t updated ^_^)
Discussion
Comment from Portopolis on 19 November 2015 at 21:12
Sarkodie Sutton-Coldfield- nice neigborhood in Birmingham England Not Sutton Coldfield itself but spinoffs. Mays-Northfield Norton-Enfield Haborne- Other nice neighborhood in Birmingham England Saborne- Colburne- Calborne- Coalborne- Knittingham- Colham- Fernhampton- Chelmswick- Nuttonhall Relihall Redmonde Northbury Southbury Nordbury Sudbury Estbury Estuary Kannesfield Queenston Queenbury
Comment from stennes on 19 November 2015 at 21:16
Thanks for the suggestions. I especially liked Haborne, Redmonde and Queenston :)
Comment from Yuanls on 19 November 2015 at 21:41
Well, if it’s at the mouth of a major river, which it appears to be, it sometimes is named with the suffix-‘mouth’. E.g. the Bournemouth (River Bourne), Weymouth (River Wey) and Dartmouth (River Dart). I named one of my cities Ellmouth (River Elle).
Names I used on my old, hand-drawn maps include Arwich, Alesbury (from Aylesbury), Barnette, Chippingbury, Chunchington, Mortley, Wesbourne, Chadwell (District in London), Clipton (Derived from Tipton, place in Birmingham) Northweald, Linham, Cromworth, Rickwell, Cleaverbourne, Rodenbury, Alderford, Elderbourne. (Feel free to use them!)
Useful suffixes include -bourne, -ley/ly, -hampton, -ham, -bury, -ton, etc.
If you are completely stuck, go onto England on Google Maps-plenty of inspiration there! (Go to an obscure town, suburb or village and copy the name. No one will know ;)
@Portopolis Are you from Birmingham? You seem to know a lot about it! I used to live there!
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 19 November 2015 at 21:50
Something ‘Bay’ - or ‘Bay’ Something. Maybe named after its founder, or the type of people who founded it. Anchor Bay, Bridge Bay, Coral Bay, Danger Bay, Echo Bay, Far Bay, Fair Bay, Mussel Bay, Mission Bay, Native’s Bay, Sandy Bay ,West Bay/Bay West,, Bay Bridge etc etc. (or Baywest etc) Or named after a month of the year if it was founded around a certain time -January Bay, June Bay, etc
Comment from stennes on 19 November 2015 at 21:55
Thanks again, this helps me with names to other cities and places too. I think I’ll go for “Emport”, because of it being a historical and important harbour for Riko. But I might consider using some of your suggestions for other smaller places :)
The site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland , helps me much with suffixes.
Comment from Luciano on 20 November 2015 at 01:07
I would only point out that the fact of having an Ingerish colonial past doesn’t mean the capital has to have an “Ingerish” name - the capitals of Canada and Australia have “native” names, and very few major cities in the US, for example, have names derived from British toponymy: there’s the glaring counter-example of New York, of course, and Boston, and Washington (but that is not named for the place in Britain, but rather for a man from a family from that place). But Chicago and Seattle and Miami are native. Los Angeles and New Orleans were inherited from other colonists. Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh were named for people. Etc. Canada is even more extreme - there is really not that much British toponymy in Canadian toponymy - instead it’s mostly based on native names and people’s names.
I think the impulse to name places in the “colonies” after places in the homeland is understandable, and there’s no denying it is one of many methods, but limiting yourself to it is a bit of a red herring from the standpoint of how actual naming seems to work.
So in fact, you can name your capital almost anything you like - a random set of syllables, and call it “native,” or almost any family name in the world, and make an appropriate back story. None of that contravenes the idea that Riko has an Ingerish colonial background. If I really wanted to have an Ingerish name, I would mine the very detailed naming user Andy has done in Ingerland, and put a “new” in front of it: New Winburgh, New Wandsport, New Denton… etc. http://opengeofiction.net/#map=8/58.519/24.640
Comment from isleño on 20 November 2015 at 08:52
@Luciano — You’re making a valid point: the name doesn’t need to sound Ingerish. But I think stennes generally has the right idea here. He’s trying to emphasize a connection to Ingerland, to tell a story of a colonial past; and embedding a pattern in the place names is probably the best possible way to do that.
Real maps are full of patterns. New England obviously has a lot of English place names (Portsmouth, Boston, Plymouth, etc) mixed in with a distinctive pattern of native names (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Nantucket, etc). There are other names in there too, but it’s thanks to these patterns that you can look at a map of New England, and you think, New England. And stennes is trying to establish a pattern here for Riko, which is a good thing.
Sometimes in OGF, I think we create names without any patterns in mind, resulting in areas with no clear naming pattern at all, areas that tend to feel less flavorful and less realistic. So I think it’s great when people make a conscious effort to create naming patterns in the OGF map.
And I think your countries are actually some of the best examples of naming patterns being used in a really skillful and successful way. Most Ardispherian and Mahhalian names aren’t truly random syllables or random family names from everywhere. There’s an element of randomness, for sure, but it’s constrained within some really striking and beautiful patterns, and I think we’d all do well to learn from them. :-)
Comment from Ernestpkirby on 20 November 2015 at 16:56
@isleno Oh my goodness- XP You just made me realize Freedemia’s city names actually make sense since we were an Ingerish colony- The capital of Ingerland is Winburgh, so it actually makes a lot of sense for the Freedemian cities to have names and designs that resemble their Ingerish heritage. (ex. Quentinsburgh, Anneitasburgh, Franklinsburgh, Savvenahsburgh) :D Thank you! And actually, as I get closer to Narghana (a country that has a language closer to Spanish or Portugese) my names become more Spanish sounding like San Grande and San Guijjaros.
My names made sense all along and I didn’t even realize it! X’D
Thanks :P
Comment from Luciano on 21 November 2015 at 07:50
@Isleño - I hope I didn’t seem too critical in my earlier comment. I was just trying to encourage stennes and everyone to remember that there are lot of possibilities for non-“English” names, even in an Anglophone country. I feel like our OGF world is too “English”, and thus even if people want to make Anglophone countries (which is understandable since we can’t easily map in languages we don’t know) it would be great to see some alternatives developing as far as naming sources. That was my only thought. And thanks for the positive feedback - actually I’ve been trying to improve my naming and feel like it still has a long way to go.
To all: happy mapping!