(copy+paste from a reply elsewhere)

As for the names I have a whole (overly complicated system). Basically each language in my world is a mix between multiple real world dead languages. I use chatgpt or open assistant (ik that using ai in worldbuilding is controversial but all the names are still mine) to generate words in the dead languages then smash them together. Sometimes i’ll have a word or phrase that I have it translate and then combine and shrink until it’s one word. To me, this is easier than conlanging but still original and fun.

  • Anarcho Mandalorian@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Sometimes I create a fake language, sometimes I just make up cool sounds, other times I do the classic human and go “town is called silver tree because there is a silver tree there”

  • vanyiistEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    I usually take a language or languages I want to use as a theme, translate words and then remove letters or move things around until they sound neat enough.

    They get so jumbled, I don’t even know what words they came from anymore. For my most recent setting I came up with two kingdom names as Adeya and Coridia. Original they had big long Icelandic names describing where they were, and then I cut out letters, introduced new words, cut it down and so on until it became completely unrecognizable.

  • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’m really bad at truly creative names and tend to have names that that just describe what it is. I blame Warrior Cats for getting me obsessed with this naming style, and for getting me obsessed with cats in general.

    • The Feline capital city in my world is called Moonpeak, because it’s on the top of a mountain and you can see the moon really clearly from there, and the moon has cultural significance to the cats in this world. The metro area/county that Moonpeak is situated in is called Moon District.

    • The Unified Territories capital city is called Central Valley. Valley is obvious, it’s situated between two mountain ranges for protection, and central is symbolic because it’s where all the government agencies are based out of, not because it’s in the geographic centre. It’s in the metro area called Central District.

    I’ve fully embraced this naming format and am now pretty much naming all the cities in this world this way.

    Another place that my story partly takes place in is called Whisker Valley, which is the valley directly below and to the north of Moonpeak. Whiskers are important sensory organs for cats, and Whisker Valley once played host to various radar and other early warning systems for an air attack on Moonpeak by the Unified Territories. But nowadays their relationship has gotten way better and the Felines might actually want flights coming from the UT, so Whisker Valley has pivoted from hosting mostly aircraft defence systems to aircraft navigation aids (there is still a military presence to guard against enemy aircraft, but it is now a very busy flight corridor feeding traffic to and from Moonpeak). Which many cats think is an ever more accurate use of the name because whiskers are primarily range finding organs, not early warning organs.