My Kingdom for Names!

[Greyheart]

So, I have created a world for my players and I am having a bit of trouble with their homeland. You see, I decided to be kind of boring but still decently creative and name most things after colors. But I have hit a snag: I can't figure out the name of this one duchy or its ducal city.

The duchy in question is mostly hills, mountains, and coastline, and in the past it was a dwarven city state / kingdom. The duchies I've already named are as such: Bluethorn, Vertland, Sunfield, Rosewater, and Longshadow. I am really in a rut with this, and a couple people want to be from there so please help me, Playgrounders- you're my only hope.

[Wartex1]

Creambourgh?

[Greyheart]

Creambourgh?




Oddly enough, I am marking the duchy on my map in tan at the moment. However, that's not quite impressive sounding enough. This city is the ancestral center of dwarven culture in this kingdom. It is a fortress and a place of industry: if I remember correctly, I am having most of the iron and steel in this part of the country come from here. Plus, the names tie in a bit to the landscapes and are also the names of the ducal families, I.e the duchy of Bluethorn is headed by Duke Bluethorn. I guess I should have explained that a bit better, huh. :/

[Greyheart]

Well, I guess I can also use this as a sounding board for the ideas that are now popping up in my brain, ironically. So, here's some ideas:

-Amethyra (gemstone, wealth, purple is a rich color)
-Diamont (similar to above)
-Siennberg (inspired by Creambourgh above, but orange)

[redwizard007]

Blackhill - iron being black

Blackpeak - same

Redrock - because soil with high iron content is red
Bloodstone - variation

Smithbourg/berg/land/ville/shire - because dwarves

any other combination of...
-black
-red
-gold
-silver
-steel
-iron (bronze if you are oldschool)

along with...
-blade
-shield
-forge
-axe
-beard


I'm partial to Redrock given your other names.

[Greyheart]

Blackhill - iron being black

Blackpeak - same

Redrock - because soil with high iron content is red
Bloodstone - variation

Smithbourg/berg/land/ville/shire - because dwarves

any other combination of...
-black
-red
-gold
-silver
-steel
-iron (bronze if you are oldschool)

along with...
-blade
-shield
-forge
-axe
-beard


I'm partial to Redrock given your other names.

Hmm, nice suggestions. Perhaps I'll go with something like _____forge, although _____peak sounds cool too. Unfortunately, I already have a ducal city called Blackwall. Let's try some combinations:

-Silverpeak
-Silverforge
-Copperpeak
-Copperforge
-Stoneforge?

Hmm, out of these I think I like Copperforge for the name of the city. Not quite sure why. Perhaps it is named after the first forge that the dwarves ever made, long ago. But I'm open to other suggestions.

[redwizard007]

Dwarf sounding names come easy to me. Elf towns on the other hand... They all end up sounding like rare trees.

[urkthegurk]

The Duchy of Umbar.

[Octopusapult]

Ruby Gate Foundry

Coal Spit Forge

Obsidian Peak

Copper Highlands

These are some of the better suggestions from thewingless (http://thewingless.com/forge/)generator I use pretty regularly for inspiration.

[ReturnOfTheKing]

Silvershield? It's a colour :smallbiggrin:

Also, maybe this should go in the World-building Thread?

[Midwoka]

Ochridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre). :3

[Wheelhouse]

Roglund (kinda bastardized red, holdover from an older dialect maybe?)

Oldblack sounds like a poor mining county within a province

Or perhaps you could name it after a major geographic location within the province after a great waterfall perhaps? Illyands tears, turns into Yilland, or Yillands Land, just flow of consciousness here.

Edit: I just realized that this is about dwarves, kinda makes my flowery language ideas moot

[Storm_Of_Snow]

The duchy in question is mostly hills, mountains, and coastline, and in the past it was a dwarven city state / kingdom. The duchies I've already named are as such: Bluethorn, Vertland, Sunfield, Rosewater, and Longshadow. I am really in a rut with this, and a couple people want to be from there so please help me, Playgrounders- you're my only hope.

You say Dwarven in the past, is it still Dwarven, or has it been conquered?

If the former, and/or you want to keep with a colour and play off the Iron/Steel production aspect:

Russet_ (rust is closest to russet-red)
Grey_ (steel-grey) or Argent_ (silvery-grey)
Gold_ or Xanthic_ (for the yellow/white light from blast furnaces)

If the latter, you could say the conquerors renamed it after their leader, and go anywhere. For instance, you don't seem to have a purple yet (and as purple's classically the royal/imperial colour, it might suit a capital), so something like Heliotropeak, or Tyriaforge?

This link might help: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Colors

[JaminDM]

Rosehill, Greywood, Piklay (Pike+lake), Arshire, [Name of Biggest Town]+Shire, Cheesevalley

I usually build names from various languages, usually Old English, because somehow it sounds perfect. Example: Arlardia,

[Greyheart]

You say Dwarven in the past, is it still Dwarven, or has it been conquered?

If the former, and/or you want to keep with a colour and play off the Iron/Steel production aspect:

Russet_ (rust is closest to russet-red)
Grey_ (steel-grey) or Argent_ (silvery-grey)
Gold_ or Xanthic_ (for the yellow/white light from blast furnaces)

If the latter, you could say the conquerors renamed it after their leader, and go anywhere. For instance, you don't seem to have a purple yet (and as purple's classically the royal/imperial colour, it might suit a capital), so something like Heliotropeak, or Tyriaforge?

This link might help: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Colors

It is still mainly dwarven. Basically, the kingdom used to be different racial nation-states, but an invasion by the neighboring country caused the peoples of this land to unite and fight back together. After the war was over, they decided that continuing together was safer than going back to the way things were, so the Kingdom was created and the nation-states' territories are about equivalent to the duchies' borders today.

I did not know that Tyrian was a color of purple. Intriguing! Also, it makes me want to play Guild Wars. : j

[jqavins]

(Shouldn't the subject be "Names for My Kingdom"?)

Roashnihoasht? Form Hebrew for "Copper Head." (Rhoash Nħoasht, where ħ represents the Hebrew throat clearing sound; it should be an h with a dot underneath, but I couldn't find that in the character map. Also, 'Rh' is a somewhat throaty R.)

Copper Head in some other languages, transliterated where necessary:

Caput Aeris (Latin)
Kuperkapf (German)
Koperen Kop (Dutch)
Khlkynee Kefal (Greek)
Ceann Copar (Irish Galic)
Kobber Hodet (Norwegian)
Pen Copr (Welsh)


Just pick something in English that you like (Iron Peak, Silver Top, Gray Forge, Bronze Hills, whatever) use Google Translate, and if the "to language" doesn't use the Latin alphabet then you can probably find a transliterator on the web. (The Hebrew and Greek transliterations above both came from here (http://www.stevemorse.org/#dealing).)

[Amechra]

Brasdell? (Pronounced BRASS-dell, or with a short a if you aren't talking fancy-like).
Coalheim?
Rustford? (named for the red-brown color of the water in the area, which revealed the iron-rich soils to the early Dwarven miners.)
Redmines?

...

Resplendent Kingdom of the Purple Marmoset? (No one is entirely sure where this one came from. :smalltongue:)

[Greyheart]

Brasdell? (Pronounced BRASS-dell, or with a short a if you aren't talking fancy-like).
Coalheim?
Rustford? (named for the red-brown color of the water in the area, which revealed the iron-rich soils to the early Dwarven miners.)
Redmines?

...

Resplendent Kingdom of the Purple Marmoset? (No one is entirely sure where this one came from. :smalltongue:)

Hahaha! That last one is priceless! Im really torn between purple and orange. The former indicates wealth and nobility, while the latter indicates industry and energy. Okay, I'm thinking of a few options for both duchy and city. What do you playgrounders think of these?

Duchy: Coppermont, Coppertop, Copperpeak, Bronzer, Bronzehill, Bronzerange, Tyriamont, Tyrianpeaks

City: Copperheart, Bronzearm, Bronzeheart, Tyrian's Peak

Suggestions or other ideas are still fully welcome. : j

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Ambertide. Plays off vaguely brown-tan-yellow-orange colors, as well as the duchy being near the coast.

[Greyheart]

Ambertide. Plays off vaguely brown-tan-yellow-orange colors, as well as the duchy being near the coast.

Ooooooooh! I can't believe I forgot amber as a shade of orange! I'll add that to my list of potentials, and it's going to be near the top. Thanks, Ninjadeadbeard!

[Tragak]

My favorite sources of scifi/fantasy names are

*Anagrams of words
*Words from foreign languages
*Anagrams of words from foreign languages :smalltongue:

[Octopusapult]

My favorite sources of scifi/fantasy names are

*Anagrams of words
*Words from foreign languages
*Anagrams of words from foreign languages :smalltongue:

So what is Tragak an anagram for? Tag Ark? :p

[Tragak]

So what is Tragak an anagram for? Tag Ark? :p Actually I just got it from a Kobold Names list, so that would probably fall under "foreign language" :smallwink:

[Greyheart]

Sorry for taking so long to continue this thread! So, I've settled on the name "Amberfell" for the duchy and "Tyrian's Peak" for the ducal city. Amber was an excellent suggestion as a color of orange, but I was having trouble coming up with something that suited the duchy and the dwarves. So, I went and looked up the names of different land formations and found "fell," which is a kind of mountain. Seemed good to me! And I think I'll also combine it into the duchy's economy with logging. The ducal city will be named after a dwarven king, Tyrian. If anybody has further suggestions before I make it official, though, please go ahead!

Also, if people are interested, I'd be happy to post my map of the kingdom as it stands with the names of the duchies, and most of the cities and towns. Although I have yet to put down the names of bodies of water or mountains.

[Hanuman]

Places are named by their history.

Use claimed significances, either the history of the claiming or the importance of it's nature. Use resource or simplistic names to detail terrain.

You might call a desert "blackrock" because the mountains have lots of boulders that cast shadows making them look black.

The entrance to that desert you might have a small town called Gerlach because someone named gerlach settled there and grew his settlement until it became a town.

The main city 2 days caravan away might be called Las Vegas which means The Meadows in the native tongue of the original settlers due to it being founded on a desert oasis and eventually transforming into a thriving city run by a completely different culture hundreds of years later.

Really doesn't matter what you call a place as long as you can fluff it correctly and it sounds like somewhere interesting you'd want to check out, even if you're only just stopping for supplies.

Take google maps for a spin and draw relative names to places of relative sizes.