Need Ideas for Fantasy Names (countries, people, etc.)

[Julia R.]

I’m trying to write a book and can never think of a unique name for my country/kingdoms in my stories. Everything I think of either sounds like the name of a Lord of the Rings character or a planet from Star Wars. Does anyone have any tips, ideas, or useful websites?

[Luke C.]

You could research the languages of people groups (Saxons, Greeks, French, Prussians, Native Americans, etc.) that are similar to the cultures in your world and create a small etymology–a history of words and names that are relevant to the book(s). And then piece together syllables of names that sound like they fit with the culture of the country/kingdoms that you are working on in the story.

(I don’t have much experience with creating names, other than I made them up from the top of my head (e.g. “Mastoderous”, “Norwertqau”, “Rezaboh”, “King Aparohynua.”) So, this is just an idea, but I believe Tolkien did something similar with Lord of the Rings.)

[Daeus]

We just had a similar discussion recently here: https://kingdompen.org/forums/topic/may-i-ask-for-some-help-world-naming/#post-16663

One thing that might help is to ask whether the language of the country tends to use more thick sounds our lucid sounds. This can be a general theme guiding your name choices. I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but I had one medieval fantasy book and I made an unconscious theme of using “Ns” in most of my names. It gave a nice cohesiveness to the whole.

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[Jess]

@julia-r, I tend to be a little more un-creative. I normally bang on my keyboard (gently) and rearrange the letters that appear. If I don’t like it, I repeat. I will sometimes take names that I like and add a few extra letters… For me, Rey went to Rayellon, and a jumble of letters turned into Medeisa. And for people names, I find numerous “popular” names on the inter-web. (A lot I haven’t heard, but works for me!)

[Snapper]

@jess I love your tactic!

☀ ☀ ☀ ENFP ☀ ☀ ☀

[Jess]

It works! 😛 @dragon-snapper

[Julia R.]

Another way my sister makes names more interesting is switching out vowels in names. For instance…
“a”, “i” or “e” can be changed to a “y”
“c” can often be exchanged for a “k”

[Anne Swiftblade]

I like your banging method @Jess. I’ll have to try it sometime 🙂

@Julia-R, I have a similar method to Jess actually, but with less banging and more staring into space ;P I try to think of what sounds I’m looking for and going from there. For example I named a desert land of mine Mindelvia, a iceland Galacialis, and an imaginary world Codash.

My tip is pick the letters you want in the name and put them in an order that doesn’t sound too bad. If it ends up sounding to Star Warsish or Lord of the Ringsy don’t worry, all your name has to be is unique and something you like.

[Author]

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