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[Ridley]

What naming conventions do you use for towns and people? I struggle with this constantly.

I've seen hybrids of existing places' names and originality, and it confuses me how often times these use the place of inspiration as a reference for its actual construction, and sometimes is completely unrelated. And does it do anything to use a name with no attachment to existing toponymy, instead of using prefixes -shire -burg etc.? Or do you have to have your own fantasy culture established for that to fly, like Tolkien and other writers often do?

This article has been somewhat helpful: http://www.scott-tracey.com/2010/07/14/townscaping-naming-your-fake-town/

But I'd still like your guys' insight.

[Xion]

What is your world like? What are the people like? What do they value? What language do they speak, and is their culture or language based on any existing language?

A high fantasy world might take names from medieval Europe and fairy tale creatures. Dictionaries didn't exist back then so you could probably steal straight from history and just change some letters around without breaking the authenticity of the name. A religious society might name their people after saints, their buildings and towns things like 'vale of [god name]'. Try it in different languages.

A more practical culture might name places stuff like "River City" and "Dark Monster Cave". Truncate shit and smash it together, thesaurusize the hell outta words, add some random funky accents, flip and rotate letters. River City > Rivity, Dark Monster Cave > Darmon Cavern > Darmüc Pit. Name shit after people. Name people after heroes and heroes after gods and gods after natural phenomena.

Sci fi settings, pull from science, biology, stars, famous people in history. Name them after their qualities, or the opposite of their qualities, or what qualities their parents hoped they'd have, or after people their parents hoped they'd be like, or Calvin.

I like to choose one or two languages to mimic and copy from, changing things to fit some rules I set (like "no 'Z's, no double consonants, j sounds like h, people names are prefixed with a gender indicator") to get the look I like. Super intelligent nonviolent race? might not have many hard sounding letters. Or maybe they find elegance paramount and reduce their names to a single syllable.

Iunno. Figure out what kind of people your people are.

[poe]

I find latin can be a good start.

[thersus]

As a music lover, I like to take inspiration from songs. Once I was concepting a game with some friends, and I created some characters based on a Mastodon song - Colony of Birchmen. There was, obviously, a man named Lion Slicer, who was very badass.
For my current project, I'm using music too, but also references from stars and space stuff, and also drugs and medicine. How about a town named Seroquax Major? :D

[Evan Balster]

Xion told it well.

Here's a case study:  The culture in my fictional setting places a lot of value on terseness.  "Speak little, tell much."  Their names are brief, and places are named as minimal descriptions.  There is a forest whose leaves take on a red color in the autumn -- it is called Tuli Sah, the Red Forest.  A village lies within it -- it is known as Tuli Sah Aai, kin of the Red Forest.  Were there two villages, they might be "kin of the Red Forest's heart" and "kin of the Red Forest's edge".

Things like this are a wonderful opportunity to flesh out your world -- they give you reason to think about its people, and perhaps make up little stories.  Perhaps rather than telling those stories, which might not be very interesting, you simply keep the name.  That creates a mystery -- why is this cave so named?  Mysteries create a horizon and make the world feel bigger and older than what is seen.

[maremccheese]

I find the fewer made up words the better. Even in a fantasy setting, too many "Galathewea" and "Gondoril" names will just be another barrier for entry. My philosophy is to keep it simple. And if you want an other world feel, consider using different spellings for common names. I think that gets the job done.

[s0]

i take my names from everywhere, movies, literature, music, art, people i know, everyday language etc etc. one boss in my game is named after a typo i made in msn lol.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

depends on the genre

sci fi games and fantasy games are usually the game that need the most made up words. what i do is try to at least keep those words familiar while still having them be somewhat alien

for instance, in immortal defense, the new words i used (off the top of my head) were:

- pathspace (dimension where the game takes place)
- planet dukis (planet)
- theocracy of oss (planet / civilization)
- k (player character)
- pul wat aa (character)
- bavakh (alien race)
- raberata (alien race)
- point (psychological structure / tower)
- indra's net (characteristic of the game's metaphysics)

pathspace is obvious -- path + space; the game dealt with paths

dukis and oss just sounded like easy names to remember for planets; i think wynand (the game's writer) actually named these two rather than me

k was taken from kafka's works, where he often names his main characters k

pul wat aa just sounded like an alien name for a character, vaguely sinister. he's mostly called "aa" in the game, and i liked the idea of an antagonist whose name was short and composed only of vowels and somewhat strange

point was like -- i just wanted a name for a tower in a tower defense game that wasn't "tower" or "turret" and had to do with psychology. i think i picked it because it was so easy to use with puns or double meanings. for instance, one of the tower types is called "turning point", another one is called "love point", etc., it seemed to fit right since it's a word that makes a little bit of sense when it follows a lot of other words (a general suffix)

bavakh and raberata were taken from a friend's novel (those entire races were taken actually, with his permission of course)

indra's net was taken from hindu mythology, it's the idea that everything is contained in everything and connected to everything, which fit perfectly

[Graham-]

pick something people can pronounce and remember. make sure its source reflects its meaning i.e. if you want something to sound foreign, choose something foreign.