How do you name a place?

[Seal]

So when it comes to making your own fictional stories and such, how do you give a place a fitting name? You know something like a forest or a town.

[Ainz Ooal Gown]

34 minutes ago, Seal said:

So when it comes to making your own fictional stories and such, how do you give a place a fitting name? You know something like a forest or a town.

For me, i'll probably gonna use a place from legends, myth and stuffs and tweaks those name a bit, y'know, like making an anagram from a name.

[ProtoAlpha]

I usually name places after colours, famous places, maybe from myths, sometimes I like to give the place it's own name. 

[Dante52]

Anagram-ing can be very useful if you're just trying to make something up (So you think of the word "table" and start switching around the letters, batel, ablet, elbat, etc.) Also, if you have a history for the thing you're trying to name, you can think what a likely name would be based on who would have named it, what language do they speak, what is important to them culturally... etc. Also, a place might have multiple names from different people. So the people who live outside of the forest might call it Lokell woods, for the Lokell tribesmen that live in/around it (Their name for the Lokell's, not what the Lokell's call themselves), while the Lokell's themselves would have a different name for it, "Akandash" (deep "a" sound, back of the throat) based on their own language.

ANYWAY, the point I was trying to make is it might be helpful/fun/easier to think of names if you think of the history of the place, the people, basically the setting as a whole. Sorry if this came off as snobbish or anything, good luck! 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Dante52

[Seal]

This really helped me out guys, thanks!

[ArtificialMask]

I just look at street signs for the names most people who don't live in your area will think Gratoit is an interesting name for a place/city

[Jelly]

zoom in on random places on google maps and steal/alter town names from there

 

i will say that the anagram idea is super nifty

[Felicity]

Names with meanings are surprisingly easy if you have an idea of the locations purpose or know what characteristics you wanna use to make it distinct. Pastor's Forest for example is a common place for pilgrimage, so it's not hard to see why it's named so. Names for larger places in general like continents are harder. It's also hard to go wrong with those so go nuts with it.