Naming your countries

This, I think, is one of the hardest aspects of fantasy writing. Naming your primary country/ies - not to mention the countries around it, that trade with it, or may be at war with it, and the towns, cities, villages, forests, mountain-ranges, lakes, and all other geographical features thereof.

In one of my novels, my country began as Craznir. Type it into Google, and you'll find a teaching course named 'Escape from Kraznir' - a project I did when I was thirteen at school, and evidently is still there for more teachers to use. I used it because it stuck in the head, but unfortunately, aside from the possible plaigiarism aspect (can you plaigiarise a school project?), the name itself did not fit the country or its language (the name would have to have come from Welsh, Old Welsh or Anglo-Saxon roots for the languages involved).

Its current name is Marteyrnas, from 'mawr' (Welsh, 'big') and 'teyrnas' (Welsh, 'kingdom'), but it doesn't stick in the brain like Craznir does. I'm considering changing it to Marteyr (I'll consult my co-writer, but I'm pretty much executive over the world-building - she's just writing one of the novels based in it and playing soundboard from time to time). Does anyone have any opinions?

Alternatively, does anyone have any other hints, tips and suggestions regarding naming countries and places. Currently, I'm sticking to three languages, each of which has entered the country differently, and conveniently matches one of Earth's languages (this is because it's what I call a 'displacement' novel - a character or characters from one world end up in another, in this case, four girls from our Earth appear in another universe). That's my personal tip: to try and keep names coherent within the language and thus believable. In one case, I have a mountain with two names - it's Marteyrian Corani (English) name and its High Marteyrian (Welsh) name.

I have to admit that my experience with languages is limited to five years of French, two of Spanish, some Welsh as a kid living in Wales, online dictionaries, and a lot of investigation into the origins and meanings behind names (people names).

Any suggestions?

efkelley said:

Googling it is the best way to see where it's been used before. So long as it's not already part of a very large project somewhere, or a particularly vulgar curse word in another language, I think you're safe.

No apostrophes.

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I've Googled a lot of my place names to avoid those problems. As for apostrophes... Well, I'm more likely to use a hyphen, but on the whole I use languages where apostrophes are generally used for contractions and nothing else.

Does anyone struggle with words/names/places with accents? I mean: ü, é, æ, ê, ù, etc.

Rhys Cordelle said:

Wow, I did escape from kraznir too! I killed off the whole party and invented my own characters, haha.

Naming is tough. I had my heart set on Crydonlee, and then I read R E Feist and he uses Crydon. Still gutted about that

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Nice to know I'm not the only one. Crydon, huh? Hmm, I wonder where he got *that* name from? Croydon maybe? (For those who don't know, Croydon's a large town in the Greater London sort of area. My dad grew up there.)

Thanks for all the other suggestions! I'll look into some of them. Does anyone use existing naming traditions? Like -ley at the end of a placename or -ford or -dale (Old English/Norse traditions) for towns and cities? Hill or bryn (Welsh for hill)? I mean, in one story I had Dwrwen, which basically translates to 'white water' (or possibly 'water white' - I have no idea if the adjective comes before or after the noun in Welsh). Actually, it might be a good bet that my novels will feature something with the word 'dwr' in it somewhere. Or 'tan' - my sneaky little references to my penname. Of course, tan is a word in both English and Welsh, although now I consider the phrase 'tan your hide' and the fact that in Welsh the word usually means 'fire', you have to wonder. Admittedly 'tan your hide' probably relates to tanning, as in preparing leather...

Okay, linguistic tangent over!

By the way, what did anyone actually think of Marteyrnas or Marteyr as a country name?

Scott Cole said:

I can't say them, I don't think, but Marteyr kind of sounds like Martyr.

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Thanks. That's exactly what I needed. I confess, I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce them (I fully intend on including glossaries in the backs of the books with pronunciation guides), but I admit I hadn't clocked onto the 'martyr' thing.

I think Marteyr would be pronounced something like 'mar-teer' or 'mar-tayr', but if it's too difficult to pronounce even in your head, I'll definitely change it.

Does this mean people will have a problem with Maeredd? Welsh pronunciation - 'my-reth'. At leat Hydan, Morien and Doalton are nice and simple... Although now I think about it, Doalton might need to change, since the name isn't really Welsh...