Help for Mountain Range

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

This might seem trivial, but I have been agonizing over it for weeks and nothing I come up with holds up. I have a range of huge mountains that runs the entire eastern border of my fantasy land. I cannot for the life of me find a good name that sounds decent. All the great possibilities that infer size or shape or other (misty, spine, spire, barrier, etc.) seem to have been used up! Anyone have any ideas that could help me? I first ran with plain Eastern Mountains, but it's too dull. I tried Storm Cloak Mountains, but it's too mushy...

A rep point for the person who gives me that 'Aha!' moment.

TheIT · May 19, 2009

Border
Edge Peaks
Spine
Sunrise, Dawn (assuming the sun rises in the East in your world

)

What's on the other side of the mountains?

Semper Write · May 19, 2009

Babbit Peaks, Beckwourth Mountains, Crystal Range, Horizon Ridges, Blue Mountains, Crimson Peaks, Whispering Hills....I could go on and on.

SPMiller · May 19, 2009

What are mountain ranges called in the real world? Use that for inspiration.

For example, in the USA we have the Rockies, the Cascades, the Big Breasts (Grand Tetons), the Appalachians, the Sierra Nevada, the Arbuckles, the Davises, the Guadalupes--and that's just off the top of my head.

firedrake · May 19, 2009

Wolf's Teeth, Dragon's Teeth, Mother of Snows....

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

TheIT said:
Border
What's on the other side of the mountains?

Across the mountains are the Eastern Wilds, where the barbarian tribes live. Although this is fantasy, I want a name that sounds 'real' or 'serious' rather than fantastical. My wife's calling me away right now, so I can't check out the rest of the suggestions yet, but thanks to those trying to help!

TheIT · May 19, 2009

One of the tricks I use to come up with place names is to make an anagram of a real name. For example, "Everest" might become "Terevas".

Fenika · May 19, 2009

Make up a word that means 'protection from wilds'

Are you using a real language as your basis? Slavic is ftw. Even if half my betas hate Rysczarn

waylander · May 19, 2009

Walls of Dawn

Mr Flibble · May 19, 2009

Bahamutchild said:
Even if half my betas hate Rysczarn

In my head I always called him Ryswhatsit.

How about

Sharptooth if they're big and pointy
Screaming Mountains if there's a wind tunnel or something
King X's Doom if someone famous died there

Think beyond the barrier aspect - what other features do they have?

Kitty Pryde · May 19, 2009

My favorite real-life mountain range names (is it weird that I have a list of favorite mountain range names?):

Wind River Range
Trollheimen (home of the trolls!)
Chugach
Great Smoky Mountains
Shawangunks
The Wallowas
Cascade Range
Bitterroot Range

My fictional mountain range is called the Murmuring Mountains. I made it up but apparently it's in a famous poem of some sort. Feel free to borrow, but it's a bit too gentle for an Epic Fantasy With Maps novel I bet.

PS A big list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_ranges

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

Kitty Pryde said:
Trollheimen
Bitterroot Range

Funny! I have an important medicinal root in my novel called bitterroot. I was just sitting around thinking of mixing trolls with the name of a mountain where I am from - Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. Trolls play a part and do live in that range, so it wouldn't be a stretch to call it the Trollback Mountains, though it sounds more like the name of an indivicual mountain than a range.

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

IdiotsRUs said:
Think beyond the barrier aspect - what other features do they have?

Mainly they are all but impassable. Hmm, Impassable Mountains? Naah.

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

Bahamutchild said:
Make up a word that means 'protection from wilds'

Are you using a real language as your basis? Slavic is ftw. Even if half my betas hate Rysczarn

There is a Russian basis to the language, but it is obviously translated back into English! I did try to put together a few obvious Russian words, but they didn't sound right. I also tried using the Sindarin and Quenyan dictionaries, though I am loathe to directly use something of Tolkien's creation, even if I change it a bit.

Mr Flibble · May 19, 2009

knight_tour said:
Mainly they are all but impassable. Hmm, Impassable Mountains? Naah.

Trackless
Impenetrable
Untrodden

Kitty Pryde · May 19, 2009

knight_tour said:
Mainly they are all but impassable. Hmm, Impassable Mountains? Naah.

Nah. The Impossible Mountains.

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

waylander said:
Walls of Dawn

On this side of the mountains, they do block the dawn from those living close by. Dawnshield Mountains? I'm not sure that works. Maybe I'll look that up in Elvish or Dwarvish!

bettielee · May 19, 2009

You can also name it after someone - I have an "Auden" Range and "Wystan" Mountains, cuz that is how much I love WH Auden

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

I'm no language expert, but in Sindarin it seems that 'Dawnshield' would be Amrunthan. Is it legal to use Sindarin or would one need to alter it?

Fenika · May 19, 2009

Heh, I just sent you a rep for Russian based language, but as I scrolled up I caught the name of your WIP (again). Shard. Shard mountains. Works for me

What's shard in Russian and then anglicized so we all can say it?

Fenika · May 19, 2009

knight_tour said:
I'm no language expert, but in Sindarin it seems that 'Dawnshield' would be Amrunthan. Is it legal to use Sindarin or would one need to alter it?

You'd need to alter it. Even if Sindarin was public domain (guessing it's not), you don't wanna be THAT derivative.

But a minor change might work. Start by sticking some vowels after the m

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

Bahamutchild said:
Heh, I just sent you a rep for Russian based language, but as I scrolled up I caught the name of your WIP (again). Shard. Shard mountains. Works for me What's shard in Russian and then anglicized so we all can say it?

Too weird! It would be Nadkrilye. But some other Russian might work. Perhaps Volk (wolf) since it doesn't sound so bad anglicized. Wolf-something mountains. I have to go to bed now since it is late, but I think I'm on the right track. I appreciate all the help!

K_Woods · May 19, 2009

IdiotsRUs said:
Sharptooth if they're big and pointy

The problem with that one is that people of a certain age won't think mountains, they'll think cartoon dinosaur peril.

With the barbarian mention, I think it might be colloquially known as "the edge of civilization" but I'm hard pressed to think of a good "real" name for it. If it was my story, I'd probably resort to cobbling together a naming language...which would probably spiral out of control in short order...rather than flailing for an English phrase.

knight_tour · May 19, 2009

K_Woods said:
The problem with that one is that people of a certain age won't think mountains, they'll think cartoon dinosaur peril.

With the barbarian mention, I think it might be colloquially known as "the edge of civilization" but I'm hard pressed to think of a good "real" name for it. If it was my story, I'd probably resort to cobbling together a naming language...which would probably spiral out of control in short order...rather than flailing for an English phrase.

Yeah, I have just a bare few made-up Elvish words in my book; I mainly stick to the Common Tongue, which is an evolved form of Russian.

Fenika · May 19, 2009

knight_tour said:
Too weird! It would be Nadkrilye. But some other Russian might work. Perhaps Volk (wolf) since it doesn't sound so bad anglicized. Wolf-something mountains. I have to go to bed now since it is late, but I think I'm on the right track. I appreciate all the help!

Volkrilye. The wolf shard mountains (roughly). It could grow on me.

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