Naming Fantasy Places & People for your Novel (and what mistakes not to make)
So you've started writing a book. It's High Fantasy which means you can't just steal place names from the real world. You need to come up with your own. Every town, every river, every character needs a NAME. Where do you even begin?
You've probably heard that Tolkien created multiple fantasy languages while writing the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. These days people call this process "conlanging" (that stands for constructed language). There are loads of resources online to help you - but creating your own language, much less multiple languages, is still a tall task. Tolkien spent years doing just that and he was an expert!
So is it worth it? Short answer: nope!
The more interesting answer? Yes, if you fake it.
The tip of the iceburg and no more!
Fantasy languages have two key benefits when writing your novel:
- Grounding your story: if the words follow a pattern and rules people are more likely to believe
- Naming made easy: just look at your language for reference whenever a new place needs naming and keep writing (this is important if you want to actually finish your book)
You can achieve both things with a tenth of the work by making just the tip of the iceburg. That's what G. R. R. Martin did with his famous Song of Ice and Fire series. Like him, you can save the development of a complete conlang for when your books are adapted into film.
Where to start?
If you're anything like me, you've probably got a list of names that you like the sound of. Maybe you've even picked out a good name for your main character. Excellent, this is where you should begin. Write down all the names and words you've got.
If you're struggling, never fear! It have you covered. On my Pinterest you'll find a few boards with different fantasy name lists. Write down any ones that call to you.
Now give each of these names a category or two. Is this a masculine name? Feminine? Gender neutral? Which culture does this name belong to?
Here's an example from my own book the Seeker's Key (get on the waitlist here).
My main character's name is Lucan Ksaera. I got that name Lucan from a Roman writer and his surname was inspired by the Russian name Ksenia.
- Lucan: an ending = masculine, Asterian
- Ksaera: ra ending = surname, Asterian
I decided based on that names with the final syllable containing an "a" sound were masculine: -as, -ar, -ah and so forth.
But... his surname also has an "a" sound. Not to worry. There is more than one "a" sound in the world...
Choosing Sounds
Every language has a limited assortment of sounds that its speakers use. Within English, there is some variation between the exact sounds we use - that's what we call accents!
However, generally you're going to find a series of sounds that look like the chart here.
This is called an IPA chart. Every sound people make in every language across the world has its own symbol! That's why some of these look a little strange...
To get a sense on what all the symbols sound like reference this handy website.
Going back to my "a" sound conundrum. Looking at the chart, you can see multiple ways to pronounce an "a".
What does that mean for my fantasy language? They have two "a" sounds! You can choose to give one a little dot or line over the top, mimicking some languages, or you can just file that knowledge away for later.
For example, I could write my MC's name like: Lucan Ksaerä. And whenever that second "a" sound comes up, I use ä instead.
(If you're using Microsoft Word go to Insert > Symbols > More Symbols and pick whichever letter you like!)
Don't feel like you need to go wild here, but it can be useful to think about the vibe you want your fantasy language to have. If your book has a "fantasy France" setting or a "fantasy Russia" setting, look up what sounds those languages use. Even better, Wikipedia has entire articles about the Medieval versions of these languages. So rather of your language sounding like modern French, get inspired by Old French instead!
After that, cross reference what sounds your list of names churned out and add those to the chart. Maybe kick out a couple sounds too (not welcome anymore!). Then you're done.
If that's not working, check out this useful website. By clicking "generate new langauge" you'll get a random chart to play with. It's really useful for this first step.
Getting a List Together
Now you know what sounds your language is going to use, it's time to get a list of words together. For this you'll want to be fairly focused. Only come up with words that inform your worldbuilding.
When it comes to place names, people aren't typically that creative. How many places do you know that are just another place name with the word "New" in front of it? I bet you can think of a handful without even trying.
The meanings should be straightforward. What makes it fantasy is that you'll leave them untranslated.
One of the locations in The Seeker's Key is called Tragon. This translates to "spring fortress" in my conlang. Why? Well its a fortress that was built on a hot spring. That's it. But it sounds cool, right?
And even better, when I name another fortress all I have to do is change the beginning. Maybe this new fort will be called Ollgon "stream fortress" instead. The reader will think in the back of their head - hey, that sounds familiar! And there, I've started convincing them there's an entire language or two holding up my story world.
Here a few lists of words to guide your word creation (don't feel like you need to do all of them, just pick out the ones you think you'll commonly use):
Place Names: river, cave, castle, fortress, settlement, camp, crossing, ditch, forest, woods, hill, lake, garden, gully, mountain, field, farm, spring, port, brook, stream, port, wharf, sea, summit, upland, village, market, valley, clearing, cottage, rock, narrow, meadow, inlet, estate, canal, glen, rock, bay, beach, channel, cape, cliff, cove, marsh, ridge, ait, bar, esker, pond, dale, pass, temple/church, watchtower, lighthouse, stronghold, waterfall
Types of Trees / Vegetation: ash tree, oak tree, willow tree, heather, garlic, barley, wheat, rye
Animals: pig, chicken, dragon, snake, boar, deer, bear, wolf, sheep, goat, swam, fowl/birds, wyvern, griffon, unicorn,
Colours: red, blue, green, black, grey, yellow, clay, ochre, white,
Royal or Religious Titles (showing ownership): king's, prince's, bishop's, queen's. Tip. For this one, you'll need to think about how your fantasy language shows possessive. In English, we use 's or of. In Asterian, "Queen's Garden" becomes Sib "garden" + Seloriennō "Queen's".
Commerce: coin, gold, silver, iron, meat, dairy, cheese, hunting
Description: strong, tall, prosperous, broad, east, west, north, south, far, new,
Once you have a more extenstive name list you can add a few more options:
- the surname of the noble family who owns this name
- the name of a god worshipped here
- the name of a person who once lived here
If the realm you're naming has had multiple peoples live in the area (English for example has had the Celtics, the Romans, the Normans...) you might come up with multiple words for the same kind of place.
Struggling to come up with a diversity of sounds? Check back in with that list of names you made before. Cut them into pieces and use those combos here. For example: Emara = "em" + "ara", Vyara = "vy" + "ara", Azelie = "aze" + "lie", Lina = "li" + "na", Evita = "ev" + "ita". Stow the endings away for later, but get the first half of the name to do some heavy lifting. Em could mean "river", Vy could mean "haven", Aze could mean "castle", and so on.
A Dash of Grammar
When making a fantasy language its usual to dwell on the grammar. Especially: plurals!
English modifies its words to indicate if there is one of something (singular) or more than one (plural).
In my fantasy language "Asterian" there are five categories: none (/unspecified), all, singular, paucal (several), and plural (many). You don't need to do that but it is an easy way to make your language different from English.
Why is this important? Well, let's use the word for "garden" as an example:
orm is the "none" or "unspecified"
ormi is "singular": a garden
orma is "all": every garden
ormay is "paucal" / "several": those gardens
ormy is "plural": many gardens
If I want to name a hill with several beautiful gardens, I can called it Ormaymrak.
A Pinch or Two of Uniqueness
One of the ways I distinguished my conlang was the way Asterians think about colours.
To make my life easier, and because I thought it was cool, decided that my fantasy people didn't seen colour as we do. Or, well, more accurately, they are just more poetic about it. Instead of saying "blue" they say "the sky's colour" or "the colour of soil". Colours have strong associations.
An example is kso "purple". In Asteria it was long associated with berries and summer. Then an empire conquered them. Powerful people in the empire wore purple. Thus kso came to also refer to royalty and scholasticsm. Ksosin, "those who wear purple", came to refer to some members of the royal family!
And, because this is about making my life easier, colours feature heavily in place names for my world.
There are places like:
- the Water-Green Lake: Tanatemt. This combines tana "water-green", tem "lake" and t "the"
- the Shimmer-Golden Sea: Gaelnircht. This combines gael meaning shimmer-gold + nirch sea + t "the"
- River-Blue Port: Laumys. This combines lau "river-blue" and mys "port"
You might notice that two of these have a definite article ("the" in English) at the end. This is one of those "dash of grammar" features I was talking about. Places or people with a "the" in their name get this ending. For example:
- Gaelant "the Coruscating"
- Aurruzynt "the Peacekeeper"
- Murg-Rhylant "the Grey Prince"
Now that sounds like a real language!
Naming Fantasy Characters
After all that work, you've got long list of words.
Don't set them aside just yet! Remember those name endings you came up with before? It's time to start combining these into names for your fantasy characters.
For the people of my book, I went with some fairly straightforward rules. Names with "a" endings were masculine (Lucan, Ohran, Emeran, Lazar, Vidar, etc.).
Names with "e" endings were feminine (Tomine, Elaire, Morgen, Keres, Seren, Ilde, etc.)
To mix things up there are some alternative options, but that's the general rule! Names with other sounds like Adalin, Regin, Nezun, Theun, are all gender neutral.
When You're Done
Eventually you'll have everything you need to start naming places and people!
Don't feel like you need to come up with everything all at once, but as your characters move around the map you'll naturally start referring to your list of words.
Need to name a side character in a jiffy? Guess what? Their name now means "Tree".
The characters are passing a pretty waterfall on their journey. Call it "Narrow Falls" and keep moving.
You're ready now to create a cast of characters and a fantasy realm for them to journey though. Good luck and good writing!
You’ve done the hard part—dreaming up a world of magic and mystery. But the names you choose for your characters and places? They give your story its unique colour. Whether you’re knee-deep in character creation or just starting a map, using conlang can give your world the texture and depth it deserves, without derailing your writing momentum. Need help refining your naming system or building a believable conlang without going full Tolkien? Check out my elf name generator.
P.S. a trick for adventurous worldbuilders is to have variations of the same word used in different places. For example the Asterian word for "settlement" can be written as ena, era, or ona depending where the town is. This replicates the natural changes language undergo over time. On my map you can see places like Ksena, Amalasera, and Alatona.
And don't forget to leave a comment!