Here's something I try to do with the Place-Names in Elthos. I try to give names some meaning. Not over the top heavy handed meaning, but I like names that mean something. So if I'm looking for a name of a forested village on the side of a mountain where there is a nearby stream I'll do a little research and see if I can come up with a name that the locals who created the town might have thought of.
I'll use a website like Krysstal. It provides a whole bunch of name meanings categorized in a variety of ways, such as Place-Names, Surnames and explains a bit about where names come from. It's a pretty good resource.
So my forest town name is "Combederry", which means an oak wood and deep valley.
I like these sorts of names over what I might just randomly come up with because it gives my world a greater sense of being a little bit more real that a mere wisp of my imagination. Though of course, that's what it is, really. :)
Any additional resources for this sort of thing would be greatly appreciated.
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4 comments:
I posted a random hireling/henchman/NPC generator on my blog the other day.
It's over at discourse and dragons.
I'd like to check it out, but the link to your blog didn't work. Can you post a link? Thanks.
That truly is a great way to name places! I will be using it too.
I do that same thing to name my PCs. I go to http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/
and do a Name Meaning search, its great because you can chose the origin of the names so they fit a campaign or a race best! Recently my girlfriend and I began to play an Avenger and a Paladin, and we named our characters Agnar(Sword) and Edelinde(Shield) because we are the Sword and the Shield of the party!
Thanks again for the resource I really wanted to do the same when DMing!
I'm glad you think so Yu, and thank you very much for the link. Much obliged!
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