Felmyr Place Names (WIP)

[Neyasha]

I love the history behind the name of Clover. Such details give a fantasy world a very realistic feeling and some kind of depth.

It's also very interesting to read all your thoughts and inputs to the subject of naming places.
As German is my mother-tongue I have a lot of "germanized" names in my fantasy world and often I'm really struggling with it. One reason may be, that most fantasy worlds are originally in English and when they are translated to German, the names often sound odd, so it's very rare to find fictional, but realistic sounding German names. Mostly because they sound just like modern names without any history or influence from other languages behind it.
I think the German version of the Lord of the Rings is one of the rare cases, where the translation of place names works really well - while the translation of The Song of Ice and Fire is some kind of disaster (at least for me) and I just stick to the english original. This also shows, that names are really important, when it comes to giving your countries/your world a certain feeling.

And yes, Midleset is a very good name to transport a Victorian-esque feeling.

[aeshnidae]

It's also very interesting to read all your thoughts and inputs to the subject of naming places.
As German is my mother-tongue I have a lot of "germanized" names in my fantasy world and often I'm really struggling with it. One reason may be, that most fantasy worlds are originally in English and when they are translated to German, the names often sound odd, so it's very rare to find fictional, but realistic sounding German names. Mostly because they sound just like modern names without any history or influence from other languages behind it.
I think the German version of the Lord of the Rings is one of the rare cases, where the translation of place names works really well - while the translation of The Song of Ice and Fire is some kind of disaster (at least for me) and I just stick to the english original. This also shows, that names are really important, when it comes to giving your countries/your world a certain feeling.

That's really interesting, Neyasha, I had not considered the challenges of translating story-relevant names into other languages (likely because when it comes to pop culture, I have Anglo-American privilege and usually don't have to think about it). I'm surprised that English-to-German translation suffers from this problem, though, since English is a Germanic language, although I suppose by now we've incorporated a lot of Romance/Latin words.

This thread motivated me to do an Amazon search for books about the etymology of conlang. I might check out Hobbit Place-Names and The Conlanger's Lexipedia.

[Neyasha]

That's really interesting, Neyasha, I had not considered the challenges of translating story-relevant names into other languages (likely because when it comes to pop culture, I have Anglo-American privilege and usually don't have to think about it). I'm surprised that English-to-German translation suffers from this problem, though, since English is a Germanic language, although I suppose by now we've incorporated a lot of Romance/Latin words.

It's a bit hard to describe, at least in English (although I'm used to read in English a lot, my active language skills are quite rusty), but when it comes to Westeros the main problem is, that a lot of names are just literally translated, without considering the structure of typical German toponyms. And sometitimes there are just parts of the names translated, which leads to weird hybrid forms, for example: Mummer's Fort > Mummersfurt (but in German it should be Mummenfurt) or Casterly Rock > Casterlystein. Of course their are some names which work great, but overall Westeros doesn't have a "real" or "historical" feeling in the German translation, but more a "typical fantasy" feeling.

On the other hand, when it comes to Middle-earth (especially the Shire), the German place names don't just sound like translated from another language. There are wonderful names like Auenbronn, Michelbinge, Wasserau, Graue Anfurten or Ohnbüttel, which I could totally imagine on a real map - and although there are also some weird names, the overall feeling of the world just works really well.

And now I really have to find the "Hobbit Place-Names" in the library.

[aeshnidae]

I think I'd like to know more about conlanging (I currently know so little that I wouldn't even attempt it) but it sounds like a rabbit hole that you could just keep going down for ages But that book does look interesting...

I hope to post more on this soon Aeshnidae. I keep an excel sheet with all the details in case I ever get the map complete so I can use the data on a Google maps type programme. But I don't really know how to do that bit yet either. Dream big I guess

Nice! I also have an Excel sheet with info about my game world (way, way more than will ever make it into the game). I'm always interested in how other people organize (or not) their creative processes.

It's a bit hard to describe, at least in English (although I'm used to read in English a lot, my active language skills are quite rusty), but when it comes to Westeros the main problem is, that a lot of names are just literally translated, without considering the structure of typical German toponyms. And sometitimes there are just parts of the names translated, which leads to weird hybrid forms, for example: Mummer's Fort > Mummersfurt (but in German it should be Mummenfurt) or Casterly Rock > Casterlystein. Of course their are some names which work great, but overall Westeros doesn't have a "real" or "historical" feeling in the German translation, but more a "typical fantasy" feeling.

Your active language skills seem quite good to me. Thanks for explaining (Azélor, thank you, too), that makes a lot of sense. And while I don't speak German, just the sounds of the names you listed from Middle Earth evoke a certain feeling.