How do you name your World? (Or nations, etc., for that matter...)

[Vorhees]

For my Fantasy world i Keep the World Name Short as Possible , the Kingdom's and And Cities i give a name That Captures the feel i am trying to get , So for instance i have a Region Called Spargos , It has a Greek Feel and is Inhabited by Minotaurs and Humans, i also have a Region Called Jarlgarr that has a Nordic Feel. When i am doing my future World i Usually name things after current or historical places or Events as in New Scotland, Camelot and Fort Apache.

When doing a lot of places i find that this site http://donjon.bin.sh/name/ helps alot

This one can come in handy at times. http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

[Korrigan]

I try to find names that sound "natural". I try to avoid mixing things like "K", "Kh", Gh" with vowels to sound exotic. I usually just find it lame...

Last time I had to develop different races and cultures, I try to find a real-world language that would fit for each one. Then I made up names mixing different words in those languages. For example, I chose welsh for the elves, icelandic for the dwarves, britton for one of the human kingdoms,... In this kingdom, the capital was made of white marble, so I wanted to name it "the white city", which is said "ker gwenn" in britton. So I simply named the city Kergwenn. Easier is better.

The other advantage of this method is that I can provide my players with lists of real-world names in those languages, which links them to the cultures they'll play in.