Geographical locations in fictional universes

Depends. Sometimes I’ll have the name relate to something in that location and others are completely different.

For example; I’m having to say the locations of many of the towns surrounding Cerulean City. They all have widely different names with no direct relation, but the common denominator they have is that all those sub-cities are ones around Oakland, California. Concord, Hayward, Orinda and Albany.

Best place to start for you is to find something to relates to the location and base it off that. You can even do a portmanteau to mix things up!

Just let me know if you need additional help. I’ll be more than happy to pitch in if I have an idea what you’re trying to name.

 

I try to think of a name that is somehow thematic to the place - either what it represents, where it's located, some sort of geographic feature that it's known for...you get the idea.
Off the top of my head, if I think up a name for a place that's, say, 'Brightfall', that could mean that it's a place that gets a lot of contact with the sun, has a lot of lights or vibrant night life, is near to a glistening waterfall that shines day or night (or just night or whatever), or to really stretch it, that there's an old folklore passed through the ages that an angel fell down here once a very long time ago, causing such-and-such an event.

It's a rather simplistic approach, I know, but I think it helps. The simpler you can keep the name, the better (in my opinion), because it allows you to be much more open-ended. And there are a lot of two-syllable words (or two-word portmanteaus) out there.

 

I name my cities like I name my names, I throw letters at the screen until something sticks. Generally I get a lot of weird unique names, but they all seem to relate to what the city is known for in some way or another. One such example of a name is Lurious. I just threw letters and that is what I got for a town name.

 

like everyone’s said, name it according to how the place is like or throw letters until it sticks! i do both a lot when i name places.
you could also do something like what pokémon does - for example, each country / region has a theme (eg. kanto’s theme is colour), thus saving you from having to waste time thinking up more creative names! however, it would be better if the name of the place also relates to the place itself (eg. cerulean city, cerulean = blue = water, water-type gym in cerulan city etc)

 

I try to name it after either some of it's surroundings or in an honor of a character/person.

 

If you're using a setting similar to a real world location, you could look at how people in those locations name their cities and things and use those naming conventions for your own things. I reread the Eragon series while my internet was out and realized there are a lot of norse names for the human cities in that setting, which I hadn't noticed before because the last time I read it was probably before I played Skyrim and I didn't know much about it before then.

For me personally I usually pick a name that describes something about the location. A city in the story I'm writing right now is called Blackthorn because its located on a mountain made of black stone. I used to name all of my cities after the Latin translation of their primary characteristic. I still do this occasionally, more as a placeholder than anything else. You could always use placeholders until finding a name you like. Naming locations is a lot like naming a character. It's just finding something that fits.

 

With me, it depends. If it were for a region of the Pokémon games, I'd look at naming themes, like how Kanto's towns all have something to do with colors and Johto's seem to have something to do with plants. Anything else? I'm kind of stuck trying to brainstorm names.

 

You Can Use The Real Places Or The Places From Another Fictional Books As Inspiration.
For Example In My Case ,'The Dreamworld's Center City' Is Based Of 'New Mouse City' From Geronimo Stilton Animated Series.

 

I give them a name that means something regarding their land. An example is in my D&D world, a country is named Partum. It's a steampunk/magitek heavy land with lots of inventors running around. Partum is a form of Partus, which means birth/create in latin.

Another, more simple name from my Pokémon Fanfic is the town of Shade. It's a very criminal centric area covered by a mountain's shadow.

So my recommendation is to find meanings corresponding to what makes the place special and to search for words that have that meaning that you like.

 

I have two fictional villiages/towns. One is Blazewood because it is in a forest filled with a special type of fictional magical trees called Blazewood trees, and that's in a fictional world filled with magic. The other one is from my Minecraft world called Cricket Town, because I thought it was silly but easy town name to say. It helps that my brother hates it too.

 

If it’s an original world, then I think about a word that encompasses the place. This might entail the culture, language, religion, etc of the place. I then go on google translate and find a cool sounding translation of said word. Truthfully, I do the same for names as well.