Felmyr Place Names (WIP)

[Weery]

Continuing on with the discussion on how I approach place names I'm posting an old first draft of the north-east region of Aluine. This is where I begin to zoom in on regions but I'm using this example to explain how awful my original approach was and what I've learned from my mistakes.

Attachment 107142

This first draft (from many years ago) had several countries and city states. The biggest problem imo are the names. I named every location on this map in one sitting. And it shows.

Zero thought. Zero planning. Zero coherence.

This is completely at odds with how I work now. The names on this map convey almost nothing. Even to me. And I created them! It's a total mess. There are literally only about 2/3 that I would consider using going forward.

What happened is that I sat there forcing my brain to come up with a bunch of different sounding names, probably moving through the alphabet ala Lloyd Christmas guessing Mary Swanson's surname It's weak and meaningless.

I work much slower now and create a narrative for every street (at the very least) or an idea of what I want to communicate to the reader/viewer (at the very most). For example, the entire east coast of this old map is now one country. It's named Midleset and its where Grimmsmouth is. I think the name Midleset conveys something about the nature of that country without me even needing to explain a thing. And it very quickly becomes clear that it's an England proxy when you start to see Victorian type maps etc.

In my next post about this I'll include an updated sketch of this map demonstrating the evolution of the map and some of the place names I've kept. I'll also explain why.

Thanks again for reading