What are some good strategies to use when naming a fictional city?
Asked by: Brandon Chaplin
Here are a few ways you can try:
- Pick up books you’ve never heard of and skim through until you find words you’ve never heard of.
- Combine author’s last names.
- Read wikipedia about the history of a nearby place and switch up the letters a bit (Spoonerisms make for great fun).
- Pretend to invent a language.
How do you name a fictional city?
Pick where you want your city to be (or to suggest being), find a dozen cities in that area, look for a rule, and invent a name that fit both that rule and the mood you are trying to create. Show activity on this post. I like to use a naming generator to help me get an idea of what sort of names fit my story.
What are some good fantasy city names?
- Genie.
- Myconid.
- Ogre.
- Pixie.
- Treant.
- Troglodyte.
- Open the Google Maps app .
- Search for an address. Or drop a pin by tapping and holding a place on the map.
- At the bottom, tap the name of the place.
- Tap Label.
- Put yourself in your audience’s shoes as they pick up your book for the first time. …
- Keep the name consistent with your worldbuilding. …
- Pay attention to the sound of the character name. …
- Try tweaking existing names from cultures and countries (or a fantasy name generator).
- Generate Map. Go to the Watabou fantasy city map generator and make a map.
- Choose Government. This city-building recipe is primarily bottom-up. …
- Create Districts. Next, divide your city into sections. …
- Place Buildings. I would do most location placement during session run-time. …
- Add Encounters. …
- Add Flavour.
- Step 1: Choose a location. …
- Step 2: Ensure a reliable water supply. …
- Step 3: Ensure a reliable money supply. …
- Step 4: Think about jobs. …
- Step 5: Do not alienate locals. …
- Step 6: Devise a masterplan. …
- Step 7: Integrate transport. …
- Step 8: Consider banning cars.
- Albuquerque – Burque (added 12/26/21)
- Ann Arbor, MI – A2.
- Chicago, IL – Chi-town.
- Cincinnati, OH – Cincy.
- Dallas, TX – Big D.
- East Lansing, MI – EL.
- Grand Rapids, MI – GR.
- Hong Kong, China – HK.
How do you name a fictional world?
Take names from places and things around you
You want something unique and not too similar to other well-known worlds in fiction. So, how can you come up with something unique? By taking a look at what’s already around you. It’s easy to look at street names, cities and towns, along with states and countries.
How would you describe a fictional town?
Describe the city through the perspectives of your characters. A big challenge when writing about a fictional city in a story is avoiding obvious moments of description, where you put a description of the city in a character’s voice to give the reader information about the setting.
How do you name a location?
Give a place a private label
How do you make a fake country name?
pick a foreign-sounding word you like the sound of e.g. sorelle. Change a consonant for effect e.g. germanic military use harsh sounds so “sorek” Change a vowel e.g. “sorok” Add nationalistic trimmings e.g. People’s Democratic Republic of Sorok.
How do you create a fantasy name?
So you want to create good fantasy names?
How do you make a fantasy town?
Let’s dive in!
How do you create a town?
How to build a city from scratch: the handy step-by-step DIY…
How do you write cities?
Always lowercase the word city in constructions such as, “the city of Kalamazoo.” In general, the construction the “city of” is unnecessary, except as a nonspecific reference to the government of a city. Use: Funding was provided by the city of Kalamazoo (meaning the government).
How is the fictional city different from real life cities?
A fictional city leaves the author unburdened by the restraints of a city’s actual history, politics, culture and can allow for a greater scope in plot construction and also avoid vilifying any actual group of people.
How do you abbreviate city names?
Albuquerque – Burque (added 12/26/21)
Do you put a comma after a city name?
The MLA Style Center
Unless a place name is at the end of a sentence and followed by sentence-ending punctuation, whenever you list a city and a state or a city and a country, place commas around the state or the country. The rule applies even when the country or state name is abbreviated.
What is AM Dash?
An em dash is a punctuation mark that can be used to replace commas, parentheses, colons, and semicolons. In general, the em dash is seen as being more interruptive or striking than other punctuation, so it is often used stylistically to draw a reader’s attention to a particular bit of information.
How do you write Denver Colorado?
Denver, city and county, capital of Colorado, U.S., at the western edge of the Great Plains, just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The city and county were consolidated as a single administrative unit in 1902.
Is the Oxford comma?
The Oxford comma is the comma placed before the conjunction at the end of a list of things. For example, in “the flag was red, white, and blue”, the Oxford comma would be the one appearing before “and”. Proponents of the Oxford comma say it’s necessary for removing ambiguity in sentences.
How many punctuation marks are in the English language?
14 Punctuation Marks
What are the 14 Punctuation Marks in English? There are 14 punctuation marks that are used in the English language. They are: the period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, brackets, braces, parentheses, apostrophe, quotation mark, and ellipsis.
How do you you use a semicolon?
Use a semicolon to join two related independent clauses in place of a comma and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet). Make sure when you use the semicolon that the connection between the two independent clauses is clear without the coordinating conjunction.
Does or need a comma?
Should you use a comma before or? The answer depends on how you are using or. Always place a comma before or when it begins an independent clause, but if it begins a dependent clause, don’t. In a series (or list) of three or more items, you can use a comma before or, but this is a preference, not a rule.
How do you use nor?
Think of “nor” as “or” for negative sentences, and it’s not optional. Use “nor” before the second or farther of two alternatives when “neither” introduces the first. Example: Neither my mother nor I understand these directions.
What is the difference between dependent clause and independent clause?
According to the Purdue OWL, an independent clause is “a group of words that contains a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought.” A dependent clause is “a group of words that contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought.” Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (connecting word) .
Can you start a sentence with but?
The short answer is yes; there is nothing grammatically wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction like but, and, or or.
Why you shouldn’t use the word but?
Using but in a sentence generally serves to negate or distill all the positive statements you made before it. Sometimes we don’t even consciously register that when we hear the word but, our brains translate it into this: But = Here’s the catch… What do we do when we hear there’s a catch?
What is it called when you use the wrong word in a sentence?
Definition of malapropism
1 : the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase especially : the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context “Jesus healing those leopards” is an example of malapropism. 2 : malaprop.