name the kingdoms!

[marycatelli]

And now I need some difficult names.

It's hard to pick out suitable fairy-tale names when so many fairy tales name one character, or none at all.  But one thing they never do is name the kingdoms.  Even when you have to travel to the thrice tenth kingdom, because the ones in the middle are of no importance -- dismissed in a line such as "speedily a tale is spun, with less speed a deed is done."

But if you want to have several nearby kingdoms, and far-off kingdoms, so you can have "Kate Crackernuts" and "Iron Hans" and all the other multi-royal-family tales, you need some way to keep them apart.

grouse

I hate location names.

Comments

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

The westernmost bastion against the barbarians is obviously Visigard, named for the fortress it grew up around.

[marycatelli]

One advantage of living in fairy tale land, as opposed to legend land, is that there are no barbarians.

Robbers, yes. Griffins, ogres, trolls, dragons, and witches, yes. but no barbarians.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Well, the Rotten Bastards, then. Barbarians are, technically, people who live more than walking distance from Plato's house. The term has loosened up since.

[marycatelli]

Who? The only people who act in concert in a fairy tale are the kingdom's armies. And those are so small that the hero can pull off the hat hiding his golden hair, get on his magical horse, and go destroy one.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Well, the orcs next door, then. I dunno, I just thought I could be of use.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Place names often come from what that region is known for. I'm not sure if you want to us other languages in your fantasy world, but there's nothing wrong with looking up words in other languages that describe features.

Is on place known for being a roosting ground for griffons? Is there a place with lot of sink-holes and caves that make trolls happy? (I totally want to write stories about trolls making homes in the Yukatan Peninsula where all the rivers run underground through limestone caves.)

There may be certain places where some types of herbs grow better than others, given rainfall, shade and other factors.

Don't mind me, I love geography.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest the same sort of thing; if they aren't famous for anything, go for symbols-- Sapphire Kingdom (blue banner), Eagle Land, etc.

[marycatelli]

I'll have to fool about with it, see what sounds natural.

[marycatelli]

Linguistics is always funny in fairy tales, since they never need translators. . . maybe that's why they have so few names.

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

Translators... names....
...
Now I am thinking of everything being named literally.

Like, if someone is named Amanda, they're Love-Worthy; if Amy, then Loveable; if Peter, than Rocky; if George, then Farmer.

Kind of like with the Beauty story where the POV character mentioned that she thought the family had quite enough virtues personified, thank you very much.

[marycatelli]

Meaningful Names can be fun to play with.

[theglen.livejournal.com]

The Germans have lots of lovely suffixes for place names. -Berg, -Heim, -Stein, and it's very in theme with fairy tales as well.

You've also got the weird out of place name in some tales, just a single word that might make sense in context or perhaps not. Shell, Wall, Crystal, Book. Plus a lot of names in Welsh have just bizarre spellings and look in place in Fairy Tales.

[marycatelli]

hmm. . . possibilities