Re: CHAT: Ability of Americans & Europeans to locate each others cities

On Sep/17/2002, Clint Jackson Baker wrote:

> When all else fails, say "Springfield"! (Most common
        Speaking about city names: what are the
names/strategy/structure/algorithm (if any) people use here for toponyms
in their concultures/conworlds/conlangs? (yes/I/like/slashes/:-D)

        I think the deep motivation of the question is more to see
strange or humorous names people gave to this places in their conlangs,
more than anything else ;-) I've used a few different strategies in
Unahoban (specially since the names were formed before the language had
any meaning O:-)):

        - Names of people from old tales ("Lhoena", after a maiden's
          name)
        - Expressions of people about the country ("Ish'ein", "Plain
          land")
        - Good ol' compound names ("Imiroshtu", "Cloudy Sky";
          "Aumunlunnin", "Roots of Stone")
        - Some souvenir from the place in question ("Gish", "Sand"; the land
          is almost totally covered by a desert)

        And then I have a lot more that I haven't yet "reverse
engineered" or modified to have any meaning at all O:-)

        This really is a field where just copying real life would give a
lot of good examples. Many of the names of towns have that kind of
"compound names" that can be easily translated into a conlang and become
a nice name for a fantastic place :-) Indeed, there are a few here in
Galicia that would make for some nifty (and/or funny) names:
"Compostela" (from "Campus Stellae", "Field of Stars"), Valdoviño
("Valley of the Wine"), "Lobeira" ("Wolf's burrow", or maybe "Wolf's
hole"), "Ardemil" ("A thousand burn"; I think it refers to a legend of a
muslim army that was burnt there) ... I'm sure every language has their
anecdotic names to tell :-)

--
        Roberto Suarez Soto

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