Naming a world

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

I am contemplating embarking a task of huge proportions...

I'm going to build a world ^_^


I already have several things in mind, towns, villiages, the way certain things within the world work, etc etc...

but it needs a name..

I'm at a loss, it must sound truley amazing! I refuse to call it as something as arbitrarily cliche as -my name-'s world.

so I ask you

how do you go about naming your homebrew worlds/planes of existence?


if this should have gone in the homebrew section my sincerest apologies, I thought it fit better here.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Well I dubbed my world Terra Nara.
Terra because it means earth in Latin and Nara because it makes it sounds mystical.

[Shadowleaf]

Hey! Wayne's World's a great name for a D&D world! :smallbiggrin:


In all seriousness, for me, it depends on a certain number of things:

1: The theme of the world. If it's dark and gritty, it needs a 'cold' name. If it's all heroics and high tides, it needs a more 'epic' name.

Examples:
Gritty and dark - Mernos.
Heroic - Calamus

2: The languages of the world: If everyone speaks with apostrophes and clicks, chances are the world will be 'clickclick''click.

3: Those who named the world. If it was the Gods, it would have a Divine-ish name, Humans would call it something related to a Common word, Elves would name it after nature (or Nature), and so forth.

Examples:
Divine - Hona'ethion
Human - Terra, Earth
Elves - Taendrias

4: If everything else fails, latin-sounding name. Geonosis from Star Wars is a good example - it sounds like a real world, and it has a latin meaning to it.

Examples:
Geonosis
Caenemus
Fimus'thalar.

[big teej]

Hey! Wayne's World's a great name for a D&D world! :smallbiggrin:


In all seriousness, for me, it depends on a certain number of things:

1: The theme of the world. If it's dark and gritty, it needs a 'cold' name. If it's all heroics and high tides, it needs a more 'epic' name.

2: The languages of the world: If everyone speaks with apostrophes and clicks, chances are the world will be 'clickclick''click.

3: Those who named the world. If it was the Gods, it would have a Divine-ish name, Humans would call it something related to a Common word, Elves would name it after nature (or Nature), and so forth.

4: If everything else fails, latin-sounding name. Geonosis from Star Wars is a good example - it sounds like a real world, and it has a latin meaning to it.


excellent suggestion.....

I may go with a combination of "mannan" and something.... earthy sounding.

hmmm... -ponder-

[Holocron Coder]

excellent suggestion.....

I may go with a combination of "mannan" and something.... earthy sounding.

hmmm... -ponder-

Manetheren (http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Manetheren)? :smallbiggrin:

Kidding aside, I echo Shadowleaf's opinion. Of course, pulling from obscure sources could be useful as well, especially if the source fits and the name/word is based around the same premise as described earlier.

[arguskos]

Like Holocron says, pulling a name from an obscure source works excellently. My setting is named after a fairly obscure individual from D&D canon, actually. :smallwink:

[Shadowleaf]

Like Holocron says, pulling a name from an obscure source works excellently. My setting is named after a fairly obscure individual from D&D canon, actually. :smallwink:
That reminds me, actually:

I had an old world. Most of the world was written down in details - names of high priests, names of mayors, political intrique in the royal houses of the different nations, etc.
My only setback was the name. I thought for a good long 10 minutes, until a flash of inspiration gave me the perfect name. I even adopted the name for a LARP character plus several PnP characters.
Years later, I replay NWN only to discover that the name.. Is the name of an idiot half-orc.

:smallmad:

[B1okHead]

Pewee's Playhouse :)

[kestrel404]

For the names of the really important things/places, I will generally break out the obscure mythological/historical reference. Find something that's important, striking or unique about the thing you're naming, then find something in history or mythology that links closely to some aspect of that. The more obscure the better.