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Bryan1108
2013-06-29, 04:16 PM
So I am just starting out, working on an adventure that will take the heroes to almost a dozen different alternate Earths (Evil Twin Earth, Cartoon Earth, High Fantasy Earth, Far Future Earth, etc) and I am stuck on names.

I don't want to go Earth ### or Earth A,B,C etc as that has been done to death as well as Alpha, Beta and so forth.

I like the idea of naming them Midgard, Gaia, Tellis and Terra but then I run out names before I run out of Earths.

Using Earth in other languages or re-ordering the letters in "EARTH" seems like a cop out.

Does anyone have a more creative solution to this?

jedipilot24
2013-06-29, 04:26 PM
Well here's one more name for your list:
Antichthon

From the Greek it means 'Counter-Earth' and it was the name given to a hypothetical planet that orbits the sun on the exact opposite side of the Sun from the Earth.

Check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Earth

Then, if you want a subtle Lord of the Rings reference, there's Arda.

If you're still stumped, just start looking at different languages for their names for 'dirt' or 'ground' and use that.

Bryan1108
2013-06-29, 04:31 PM
Nice, thanks. :)

SarahV
2013-06-29, 04:35 PM
Maybe all the planets think they are the "real" Earth and have names indicating they are the only/first/real one. Real Earth, Earth One, Earth Alpha, Earth Prime, Original Earth, Genuine Earth, Actual Earth, True Earth, etc.

For a sillier game you could name them like movies... Earth 2: Judgment Day, Earth Reloaded, Earth vs. Gamera, Revenge of Earth, Earth: Origins, Apocalypse Earth...

Easiest for people to remember would be to pick a name that ties in with the theme enough to remind people what it is: fantasy earth could be "Tolkien", cartoon earth could be "Hannabarbera," evil twin earth could be "Nale," etc. Pick ones that your group would know.

Bryan1108
2013-06-29, 04:40 PM
Thanks, I was wrestling with this since last night but then, in the last fifteen minutes, I winnowed down the list, found a website and ended up with:



Antichthon Apocalypse Setting
Low Tech, Low Magic, Low Psionics

Da Woyld Cartoon Earth
Er … nevermind

Earth Main Setting
Modern and Advanced Tech, Mid-Level Magic, Mid-Level Psionics

Etenoha Pulp Setting
Early 20th Century Tech, Low Magic, Low Psionics

Gaia High Fantasy setting.
12th Century Tech, High Magic, No Psionics

Htrae Anti-Earth Setting.
Modern and Advanced Tech, Mid-Level Magic, Mid-Level Psionics

Midgard Superhero setting
Advanced Tech, No Magic, High Psionics

Tellus 19th Century steampunk setting
Century Tech, Low Magic, No Psionics

Terra Futuristic Setting.
Futuristic Tech, No Magic, Mid-Level Psionics


That should do it.

Thanks very much.

DigoDragon
2013-07-02, 06:34 AM
I think there was an old GURPS fantasy setting that had an alternate Earth they called "Yerth".
If you want a nod to Adventure Time, you can have one alternate world called "Ooo" :smallbiggrin:

BWR
2013-07-02, 07:04 AM
Oerth
Aerth
Uerth
Yarth

(just to be classic)

Mondas (for the Whovians)

Find other names for the world in other languages.
Sticking with Germanic languages from real and imaginary sources and ignoring definite articles, suffixes and non-English letters and keeping variant spellings from the same languages, here are a few suggestions:
Iord
Jord
Erde
Erthe
Urth
Jard
Varld
Verd
Jorth
Aardrijk

Logic
2013-07-02, 08:27 PM
I ran into this issue once, and decided that misspellings work too.

Erth...
Irth...
Eirth...
etc...

To the inhabitants of the world, their spelling of "Earth" is correct, and everyone else is wrong. Obviously, if you want to go more than 3 alternate Earths, you will have to get really creative on how you misspell it, but I only had need of 3 additional "Earths" and it worked for me.

navar100
2013-07-02, 08:50 PM
Use the word for Earth in other languages. Anglo and Romance languages might be too obvious so use Semitic, the Orient, and Sub-Saharan.

Scowling Dragon
2013-07-02, 10:14 PM
Do what the Scro Did!

Earths

Saerth

Thaser

Ratesh

Herats

This has LOTS of possible combinations.

Mr Beer
2013-07-02, 10:16 PM
I like the idea of naming them according to what our Earth people would popularly name them. The inhabitants just call it "Earth".

lsfreak
2013-07-02, 10:42 PM
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Earth#Translations

Ashtagon
2013-07-03, 05:20 AM
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2913#p37696

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=101528

Two relevant threads. The first has:


Oerth - Greyhawk, basically
Yarth - "low-magic" Greyhawk, the setting of certain novels by a RL author of low repute
Aerth - Gary Gygax's setting using the Mythus RPG system (stifled by TSR)
Uerth - "gothic" Earth. Ravenloft's "other" setting, with Laterre thrown in.
Earth - here and now


The second has:


dieselpunk
steampunk
clockpunk
fantasy
here-and-now


All of them refer to themselves as Earth. PCs may choose names for them based on their experiences.

GodGoblin
2013-07-03, 08:40 AM
It all depends on the planet itself, is there any reason the inhabitants would just call it earth?

Maybe the Holy Roman Empire stayed in full swing and everyone speaks latin as there first language and Earth is known as Terra or Humos.

In a future setting we could have been invaded by the [Insert Alien race here] and its known as Kranaak (Alien world name) Nak (2).

But yeah unless the world has undergone dramatic changes it will be known as Earth, if the players are jumping about they will almost certainly come up with there own names for them anyway making it easy to track.

"Ok guys where next? Lets go to the ocean one!"

"Oh yeah Water World, the one with those crazy boat things!"

Jay R
2013-07-03, 10:30 AM
Unless there are a lot of people who travel from one Earth to another, they are all called "Earth".

It's the PCs' job to keep track of where they've been, not yours.

Barsoom
2013-07-03, 10:50 AM
Rough Draft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Draft_(novel)) has a nice collection of alternate Earth's.

OverdrivePrime
2013-07-03, 11:28 AM
When I name serious planets for "serious" settings I tend to go with one syllable or two syllable words with a primitive feel - something that would be shaped and held by a species early in language development.

I have Daera, Ela, Anth, Ril, Oori.

If you're going for a fun & silly feel, definitely go wild with it. Throw in lots of references from your players childhood and they'll be all smiles.

Kami2awa
2013-07-05, 03:53 AM
Ocean... why would you name a planet after "earth" when it's mostly covered by water?

BWR
2013-07-05, 04:07 AM
Because most people live on the earth, not the ocean. Because most people in fantasy societies have no idea that there is more ocean than landmass. Because the ocean seems very uniform compared to the land. Because people named their world before they knew that there was more ocean than land.

Ashtagon
2013-07-05, 04:32 AM
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=3854#p51484

I deliberately chose continent names that relate to the "local" word for "Earth" in geographically-appropriate languages.

My favourite still remains Charungu, which is a mistranslation (probably) of "down under" in Pitjantjajara, the Aborigine language nearest to Uluru (Ayer's Rock).

TuggyNE
2013-07-05, 05:01 AM
Ocean... why would you name a planet after "earth" when it's mostly covered by water?

One might insightfully ask the same question of our own ancestors. Why did they name a mostly water-covered globe "Earth", anyway?

Of course, they're dead now, so we can't get a real answer. Sad.

Ashtagon
2013-07-05, 05:04 AM
One might insightfully ask the same question of our own ancestors. Why did they name a mostly water-covered globe "Earth", anyway?

Of course, they're dead now, so we can't get a real answer. Sad.

They hadn't found all the water. Or all the land. But they had found more land than water.

BWR
2013-07-05, 05:21 AM
One might insightfully ask the same question of our own ancestors. Why did they name a mostly water-covered globe "Earth", anyway?

Of course, they're dead now, so we can't get a real answer. Sad.

If I may be so bold as to quote myself.


Because most people live on the earth, not the ocean. Because most people in more primitive societies have no idea that there is more ocean than landmass. Because the ocean seems very uniform compared to the land. Because people named their world before they knew that there was more ocean than land.

TuggyNE
2013-07-05, 05:44 AM
If I may be so bold as to quote myself.

Well, yeah. It wasn't immediately apparent that that's what you meant, but it does work for both cases I guess.

Wardog
2013-07-16, 07:53 PM
They hadn't found all the water. Or all the land. But they had found more land than water.

Probably also, "Earth" would originally just have meant "the ground". People didn't know that Earth was a planet then. ("Planets" were the wandering stars - the seven bright lights that moved about relative to the fixed stars: i.e Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn).

I suppose that once they did work out that they lived on a planet as well, the name "Earth" had been in use to mean "what we are living on" that it was natural to use to as the name of the planet.

And as others have said, the inhabitants of the alternative Earths will almost certainly have called their own world "Earth" as well, and - if they know about the others - will each have their own names for them.

And unless there is some sort of parallel universe United Nations (or at least, a sufficient number of people who have dealings with multiple Earths), then there is unlikely to be a universal standard naming scheme.

(Consider real-world countries and peoples - the name their own people use for themselves is often not the name other people know them by).

DM Rage
2013-07-16, 11:59 PM
I like Arda but it has probably been overdone

Jay R
2013-07-17, 10:09 AM
One might insightfully ask the same question of our own ancestors. Why did they name a mostly water-covered globe "Earth", anyway?

Because, except for a trifling little skim of water on the surface, it's almost entirely land.

If that slight bit of water that doesn't even cover the entire surface is a reason to change the name, then we should change it to "Air", not "Water". The layer of air covers the entire globe.


Probably also, "Earth" would originally just have meant "the ground".

Absolutely. "Terra" means ground. "Earth" means dirt. "Zyemla" mean land or dirt in Russian. "Tellus" means land.

I firmly believe that the Kryptonian word for "dirt" is "Krypton".

Man on Fire
2013-07-17, 10:41 AM
When talking about Earths of alternate history, you might name them after characters crucial to cause divergence point in the history. I remember Polish short story that did that - our world was called Stalin's Earth because it was only world in which Stalin got in a position of power in USRR.

Deepbluediver
2013-07-17, 02:34 PM
Lots of cultures tend to have mythology describing either the planet of a deity/spirit as a parent to the race. You could probably use lots of synonyms for "home" or "mother" to name a bunch of the planets, particularly if they come from ancient of obscure languages. Latin, greek, egyptian, and native-american/aboriginal variants are probably all possible.

North_Ranger
2013-07-17, 03:18 PM
Ee-arth for a world dominated by chronically stupid martial artists and green slug people :smallwink:

TuggyNE
2013-07-17, 05:44 PM
Because, except for a trifling little skim of water on the surface, it's almost entirely land.

I suppose "Magma" was too ominous to make the cut, despite comprising far more than even the solid rock and dirt that you can walk on.

Actually, now that I think about it, Magma is a much better name for our planet than Earth; lots of bodies in the Solar System are composed of rock, but only three have any volcanic activity to speak of.

Jay R
2013-07-19, 10:26 AM
Actually, now that I think about it, Magma is a much better name for our planet than Earth; lots of bodies in the Solar System are composed of rock, but only three have any volcanic activity to speak of.

"Magma" didn't make the cut for a name for the planet in antiquity, because nobody knew that the inside was magma.

Besides, magma is earth, as is everything else that isn't air, water, or fire. [Or ether, but that only exists in the heavens.]


Actually, now that I think about it, Magma is a much better name for our planet than Earth; lots of bodies in the Solar System are composed of rock, but only three have any volcanic activity to speak of.

Possibly, but only if the planet isn't named before we've done a scientific study of the solar system.

When people started calling it earth, they wouldn't have compared it to the planets, since Earth was not considered one. The stars were "bright lights in the sky". The planets are "stars that move" (planetes asteroi). The planets were the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Felhammer
2013-07-19, 06:51 PM
Why not name them after ancient cities?

Antioch, Babylon, Ur, Uruk, Tyre, Corinth, Thebes, Jericho, Acre, Damascus, Byzantium, Athens, Memphis, etc.

TuggyNE
2013-07-19, 10:45 PM
"Magma" didn't make the cut for a name for the planet in antiquity, because nobody knew that the inside was magma.

Besides, magma is earth, as is everything else that isn't air, water, or fire. [Or ether, but that only exists in the heavens.]



Possibly, but only if the planet isn't named before we've done a scientific study of the solar system.

When people started calling it earth, they wouldn't have compared it to the planets, since Earth was not considered one. The stars were "bright lights in the sky". The planets are "stars that move" (planetes asteroi). The planets were the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Yeah; my basic point was, Earth was not named with a very thorough understanding of its actual qualities. It's reasonable then to expect names of other worlds to be similarly misguided.

(I might quibble with your definition of magma/lava as earth, given that it seems more like a classic earth/fire hybrid. But I'm not exactly an expert on Aristotelian elements.)

BWR
2013-07-20, 08:24 AM
I can also imagine some misunderstanding between a world-hopper and a local

World-hopper: Hi. I'm from another world
Local: You sure are foreign
WH: So, what do you call this place
L: My farm.
WH: No no, this whole place
L: Lord MacDonald's land
WH: Strange name for a world. Ah well. time to move on. Farewell, inhabitant of Lormagdonalsland.

Barsoom
2013-07-22, 11:41 AM
I can also imagine some misunderstanding between a world-hopper and a local

World-hopper: Hi. I'm from another world
Local: You sure are foreign
WH: So, what do you call this place
L: My farm.
WH: No no, this whole place
L: Lord MacDonald's land
WH: Strange name for a world. Ah well. time to move on. Farewell, inhabitant of Lormagdonalsland.
True story: that's exactly how Canada got named. The word means "village" in Iroquoian (actually pronounced, "Kanata", the white explorers both misunderstood and misheard the natives).