Naming things and World creation

[rabcor]

For convenience (TL:DR) i underlined the two most important lines in the thread to highlight what exactly i'm asking.

I'm relatively new to writing, it all seems to come to me surprisingly naturally though, so i'm not so worried that my first story will be a failure. As long as i stick to "writing what i know" that is (anything that isn't comedy is what i know). There is however one thing i seem to be absolutely awful at and always spend a lot of time on, problem is that i also have a hard time enjoying it and that is naming things. I often end up spending hours of just staring at my screen, surfing through name generators and mixing letters together in a random order till i find a name that has a decent and fitting ring to it. Since i'm making an rpg universe i decided to put naming themes on all the races to simplify this for myself (i.e. one race has japanese naming trends, another has norse naming trends, etc)

But i would appreciate any tips in how to find good names for all the characters, locations, monsters and items in my games.

The other problem i currently face is that i want to avoid any plot holes i possibly can, it irks me when i play something and i notice a plot hole so i'd like to avoid anything of the sort happening in my stories. To do that i wanted to build a good chunk of the universe lore before i start writing the story and then afterwards adding things in where convenient (for example i want the player to chance upon a ruined castle, i'll add it somewhere into the lore and give it a meaning before i create it in the game.)

What i intend to do before i start seriously writing my first story is to build the world (i.e. world map) with all the major cities, towns, some villages and of course all of their locations. The world map isn't small, there are several continents with different themes (i.e. one is Greenland inspired, another is a desert, and another is mostly a forest). I've already roughly decided the themes, names and positioning of the continents on the map, but i need to add cities and towns as well as places of interest (unique locations). Sadly i'm no artist so i cannot draw it myself (this is my placeholder, although jokland is a bit too close to the 2 continents next to it in that image. The circle in the upper right corner is a massive underwater city, not a continent.) and if anyone would be willing to help me draw it, or at least an early version of it i'd very happily accept any assistance i can get.

However, what i'm asking here is for any tips to help me in designing a fantasy RPG world, both the overall world map (continent sizes, placements, etc) and the contents of each continent. (What i had planned to do city/town creation wise was to have a set amount of cities(3) and towns(5-7) per continent + random amounts of villages)

One of the reasons i want to create all the most important locations and the continents before i start writing the story, is so that i won't be able to just spawn a capital city when i need it, the story needs to be placed in the world. Not the other way around (or thats what i believe).

[Laiska]

While I don't have any especially good tips about names (I do the exact same thing, staring at generators for hours; I used to make up names by putting words backwards and shuffling the letters until it sounded good), the most important thing is making sure that your naming scheme is consistent. If you have a world with strong, distinct cultures, you want to be sure that each of them has names that reflect that, even if all the characters speak the same language. For example, in a completely homogenous culture, you would not necessarily expect to see two brothers named John and Akihito (see Aerith and Bob); you want to strive for some consistency. (This changes a bit if you have a particularly diverse group settled in one area.)

The same goes for the naming of objects and monsters. What is more important that anything else is that the names all fit within the same scheme as each other, and are consistent with the world, as well as the overall tone of the story you are trying to convey (a more cartoonish RPG might have an enemy called Kritter Kat or Dog-in-the-Box, say, where as a more serious one might just invent words to name them).

Of course, in order to do this, you need to have a strong sense of the world you're creating, which sort of leads into your second question. Creating a world map and determining sizes is more or less a matter of trial and error, though at least for distances you can get some estimate based on how 'far' you would like characters to travel (i.e. how long would you like them to be on the road, if they were real). Figure out, based on your level of tech, how far a person could travel in one day in your world, and then consider how many days you would want them to be on the road (or hours, even), and distance things from each other based on that. Then you can start to scale an in-game map appropriately.

Once you've kind of figured out what your world looks like, this is a good quick primer on creating cultures to go in it, which will help you with your naming. (I actually recommend checking out a lot of the articles on that blog.)

But, you are definitely starting off with the right ideas! Putting in the time to properly plan out your world and story beforehand will make sure you avoid the erratic pacing and plotholes that plague even some professional stories.

[Juneberry]

There are a lot of methods for naming. In terms of naming people, like Laiska said, the setting has a lot to do with it. If you have a feeling a specific naming technique is used in your area- such as everyone is named after trees- look at a list of trees to choose what you want. If you think they tend towards Irish names, look for Irish names (I'd recommend behindthename.com for both surnames and given names. They have a lot, and it'll note what the names mean and if they're used in multiple languages, etc).

In terms of places, you can always us generators, but something I like to do depending on the genre is mix languages together. For example, if I wanted to name a rainforest, it'd be lame to call it "Southern Water Valley" right? But if I use multiple languages...

Southern is Del Sur in Spanish
Water is Mizu in Japanese
and Valley is Völgy in Nowegian

(note: I get my translations for this off freedict.com)

Then, I mix things: Del Milgy, Vömi Del, Zugy Sur, etc. Thus, random names can come to being. Of course spaces don't always matter either. Sometimes it'll just turn into Delmivö or something like that.

Point is...There are a lot of ways to name people and places and things. Just find what works best for you, I think. But these are some of the things I personally use. And Laisaka's tips are good too :3

[Chieftac]

If i want to name something or someone i first always look what kind of character it is and what the role of the character in the story is. Then i also search on different websites which name fits the character the best if it was a normal human (most of the time i write sci-fi). Then i change the normal sounding name a little bit so that it still sounds the same but with different letters. For example Nicki becomes Nikkii or Kim becomes Kiim. Most of the time i just use normal names because thats easier.

Or maybe this site will help you: http://www.20000-names.com

[rabcor]

Thanks for your replies, they were helpful. Fun fact, finding names in different languages for something is something i already did with one thing, i don't remember exactly what though, i remember that one race is named Fel'du which is a changed version of Feldur which in my language means fur. Then there was Sikruf which is randomized order of letters of the word Fiskur meaning fish, and Garax because it sounded cool and similar to Rapax which inspired it.

But what was it that i used the same word in different languages for... argh why can't i remember. Ah, my Rattkin (wizardry name for same thing) which i named Ryshu. I think it was a mix of the russian(Krysa) and the chinese(Shǔ) names for rats.

[DerWanderer]

When it comes to names, I like to stick to things that I like to hear. I think I rely much on my instinct when it comes to this. I just randomly come up with names that sounds good to my ears; they may have stayed in my memory unconsciously, like a song that stayed in your head even when you don't know/don't remember what song it is, or where you listened to it. So far I've used names from university textbooks, dead musicians, characters from other novels (oops), etc. I don't use generators.

Many people created names that are trying too hard to sound foreign. Perhaps you would like to avoid that kind of names.

My principle in picking the names, then, is to consider the type of world that you're creating. What will the environment of the city look like? Will it be steam-punk themed? Modern? High fantasy-ish?

Let's look at Final Fantasy 7; it's a fantasy video game, but the setting of the city is rather Western-ish and pretty modern. Then look at the names of the characters; Cloud, Barrett, Aerith, they're written in Western-ish style, although with modifications. Or, if you're trying to make a fantasy kingdoms with swords etc, maybe you can make names from Old English culture. Names are a good companion to world building, because they (in some ways) represent the world you make. So, my suggestion is, try to look for a similar world in real life, and try taking things from there. After you've get a grip on the theme of the names (in real life), try modifying things.

[Chieftac]

For the world creation part i want to know it you only want to write about the world itself or also make it a visible world for the players to see? If you want to make your world visible then you could ask another question about that in the art section of the forum. But my tip is to first draw a sketch of the world yourself. Writing about a world is a totally different story, because then you need to discripe everything that is in the world and also there locations and stuff. In this case a sketch of the world also can help you to write about it in a more detailed way. If you want tips about how to make your own world from scratch then i have the following tips for you.

1. First create/write about the mayor locations that are essential to the plot of the main story.
2. Look at other created fantasy worlds and look for what you like and don't like about those worlds.
3. Draw a map of the world and also the main route that the protagonist can travels through the world, connecting all mayor locations.
4. Make a small encyclopedia about the world with information about plantlife, animals, the overall area (is it a desert/forest/city?), etc.
5. Do step 4 for each of the continents of the world untill you have given enough information. (You can of course also include drawings).

These are the steps i took my self to create the first parts of my own world. After writing the encyclopedia it of course isn't finished yet but this will give you enough information about who/what is living where and what is going on in the overall world. After these steps you than can make the world more complex if you need more for your story or simplify it if you want.

[Steamgirl]

If all else is lost, I get inspired by using the seventh sanctum name generators. I use them to loosen up my imagination a bit.

Name generators:
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

But you did mention generators so I would guess this route doesn't quite work for you.

I think for city names and such it helps to think a bit about what the character of the city is before naming it. Like, who lives there? Is it elves? Is it urban or foresty or a city in the middle of a lake? Let's say it's an elven city in the middle of a lake, built in an enormous single tree. We have a starting point here... Tree Lake City. Other associations? Tree of Life. Yggdrasil. Dryads. Avalon. A list of nature Deities.

Now what would elves call it? The Great Mother? Big Tree? Elvenhome?

Ok, let's think about more characteristics. Is it a peaceful place? Or chaotic? Does it have lots of trade coming in or is it quite secluded? Maybe the tree was set on fire halway through elven history? Okay, let's say it was and it was humans who did it. Perhaps the elves renamed it afterwards - Half Tree Lake City. Burnt Tree City. Elvenhomepocalypse. So now we've got plenty of inspiration to go on.

What would the words sound like in elven? Half Tree Lake City = Halb (German) Drya (Dryad) Miru (Mizu) Yan (made up)? Haldrya Miruyan? Dryan Halmir? Elvenhome = Elvinmir? Maya = Mother? Drya Maya Mir? Maidrianmir? Fire = Fira? Firadryan? And just keep going until you find something your like.

[Green Glasses Girl]

Name generators:
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

A favorite site of mine!

Behind the Name is a great source too. http://www.behindthename.com