# Ways that cities, countries, kingdoms, etc. get their names



## Topper88 (Aug 15, 2013)

As I've been writing my story I haven't paid much attention to the names of places. It wasn't really a priority; getting the plot situated was my main concern, so I've just been using placeholder names (read: crappy names) for places. Now though I'm pretty sure I'm at the point where I need to go back and think of what the different cities and kingdoms should be called. How are different ways _actual _kingdoms and countries were named?


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## Blade (Aug 15, 2013)

Topster said:


> As I've been writing my story I haven't paid much attention to the names of places. It wasn't really a priority; getting the plot situated was my main concern, so I've just been using placeholder names (read: crappy names) for places. Now though I'm pretty sure I'm at the point where I need to go back and think of what the different cities and kingdoms should be called. How are different ways _actual _kingdoms and countries were named?



I think there are not only a number of diverse sources for names but names are often changed in the course of history. A place could be named after a town in a parent country, an aboriginal chief or settlement, an early settler, industrialist or postmaster, a unique geographical feature or just what some Governor of the time happened to make up.

In the US you even have places like Syracuse and Philadelphia that were named after cities from ancient history. The sky's the limit for invention and re-invention is not all that uncommon. The city I live in is on its forth name already though the present one will probably stick since it would cost too much to change it.:apologetic:


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## Fred (Aug 16, 2013)

Before anything else, I ought to warn you this is a long old reply...

I think that for your purposes it might depend on the kind of story and the location you mean to create, and any sense of meaning or history you might want to convey.

If your story is a fantasy set in an ancient empire, perhaps some ancient European or Asian source might be worth looking at. Tolkien took the Anglo-Saxon world as his inspiration, for example. If you’re creating a sci-fi story on an extra-terrestrial colony, maybe north America is a useful example.

The naming of Old World countries and regions isn’t always that different to the New World, for example. I'm far from an expert on the rich geographical history of Asia, but the older European countries (and their regions) are often named for the ancient races that formed their dominant populations, such as France, Kent and Saxony, or for the powerful minorities that conquered or otherwise came to dominate their socio-economic and cultural systems, such as England, Russia or Scotland. New countries with less need to anchor themselves to the past might describe themselves by their ideals: the United States of America seems to me an optimistic declaration of confidence and independence, natural to the circumstances of its birth, as is Pakistan (literally, I believe, “land of the pure”).

Many European countries were created by the union of smaller states or fracturing of larger empires, their novelty reinforced often by roots found in regional and/or tribal nationalisms, such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia etc. Beyond Europe, Zimbabwe, for example, is named for the ancient city that once thrived within its borders, whilst US cities such as Palmyra, Rome, Athens and Syracuse have names taken from the classical world. That kind of mooring to a much more ancient culture lends a kind of validity of rootedness which might help bind a young country or city or state together, and so could serve in either an Old or New World situation. Alternatively, the Czech Republic is so called partly because, it was said, Vaclav Havel rejected the connotations that had since attached to the name of the kingdom that once formed that country, Bohemia. 

There are also places whose names derive from those applied by a colonial or imperialist heritage: Romania, for example, takes its name not from the Dacians who lived there in ancient times, but from the name applied to the region after its conquest by Rome. America has New York, New Orleans, Charleston, Jamestown and Virginia named for its European imperial past; Europe has London (Londinium), Marseilles (Massilia), Avenio (Avignon) and Nice (Nicaea) named for its Greek and Roman imperialist past. 

There are also literal place names: Austria (Osterreich), Norway, Yugoslavia, Great Britain and the Netherlands take, or took, their names from their geographical location relative to other regions of Europe. In the Americas, there are cities named for their location, either in the language of the culture dominant at the time of their founding (Green Bay, Rio de Janeiro), or in the language of more ancient peoples that lived in those regions (Miami, Massachusetts, Milwaukee etc.). 

Or maybe a place became known by a name described by languages more widespread than their own and imposed by their more powerful and influential neighbours, such as Wales, which is so called in English because Welsh is a term derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for “foreigners”.

One final example: I’m writing something set in a fictional town in New England (now there’s a name that means something very different nowadays), and I chose to invent a name for my town based on some cod-Algonquin phrase which I stumbled upon that suited my purposes, and which I then bastardized in a fashion that English-speakers have done to foreign words and phrases for hundreds of years, especially in cases like mine, where the originating culture had only an oral tradition. 

So, it does depend on what you think your story needs most. Maybe try and imagine what kind of history your community has, and perhaps take a look at similar historical examples from similar, real places.

I hope that wasn’t too long... the reason I haven’t finished my bloody novel is probably because this kind of interruption is far too hard to resist!


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## Spirit Deer (Aug 16, 2013)

Some places are also named for people of historical note:  Washington, the state and the city, are two well-known examples.


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## Topper88 (Aug 16, 2013)

Fred said:


> Before anything else, I ought to warn you this is a long old reply...
> 
> I think that for your purposes it might depend on the kind of story and the location you mean to create, and any sense of meaning or history you might want to convey.
> 
> ...


Thank you! This is extremely helpful.


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