I love toponymy! Conlangs are great because I love coming up with conlangs that aren't ripoff Elvish like most post-Tolkien writers, but that just gets me lost in worldbuilding too much. Therefore, I go the George RR Martin method of "naming things in English, but evoking the feel of the region." Highgarden, the Red Keep, Winterfell, Storm's End, King's Landing, Casterly Rock--I love how those names immediately hit you in the weird little corners of your head.
For my urban-fantasy Moonflowers, I'd like to translate all the place-names into Irish Gaelic once I'm done, but so far I've just got a few names solidly locked down.
Cloncarrig (Stonemeadow) is a mortal town near the Cliffs of Moher, a few minutes away from real-life Ireland's Doolin. It's a very small tourist town constantly beset by the Fair Folk, and where the setting of the story is.
The Hawthorn Fort is a fairy-castle that my female protagonist inherits after her father kills the king in her defense. It's the seat of the Kingdom Under the Hills, a petty-kingdom in the northeast of Fairy-Ireland. Since the Fair Folk in Irish lore are said to live in fairy-hills (probably tombs or the remnants of hill-forts, according to archaeology), I wanted something that gave the feel of a strange unknown part of the world. (And indeed, it's not part of the physical world, but the Otherworld.) In Gaelic it would probably be "(an) Tir Faoi na Sidhe," "the land under the fairy-mounds."
In Irish, "Hawthorn Fort" is apparently "Dun Ske," which is disappointing because it's just so short. I love how "the Hawthorn Fort" sounds in English. A fort named for thorn-covered trees? Not a nice image. In Irish folklore, the hawthorn is a tree sacred to fairies--if you cut down a hawthorn tree, fairies will punish you and it will not be pretty. However, it's also a very important tree in hedgerows, which I found interesting.
I love the imagery of the masses of white flowers on dark thorny wood, so I thought up a castle built around a hawthorn maze. It's not supposed to be a pretty castle--impressive, yes, but pretty? Again, because the Fair Folk are seen as strange and ineffable in folklore, I wanted a castle that was strange-looking and primal. I made the complex consist of a bunch of massive towers and drystone walls built around an enchanted maze. The map I thought up is in the "Building/Structure map" forum.
Breachwood / Ballybegrosh is the Fair Folk village attached to the Hawthorn Fort. It's one of the few sizable breaks in the area's massive forest, the Timberdeep. I borrowed a teensy bit from George RR Martin's "Dothraki Sea," where it's not a literal sea, but the expanse of plains are so easy to get lost in that it's essentially the same thing. Where would you have enough trees for a hedge maze? A forest, duh. And the main forest in the Kingdom Under the Hills is called "the Timberdeep."
The Timberdeep's tentative Gaelic translation is "An Muir ag Coill," "the Sea of Wood," but I think it's too pretty-sounding and poetic. Like the Hawthorn Fort, I named my forest "the Timberdeep" because this is not a place to frolic around in: The Timberdeep "drowns" would-be invaders due to getting them lost in the trees, starving them out, or getting them lost and THEN starving them. If I can find an Irish translation of "Timberdeep" that's shorter and harsher-sounding, I'll use it.
The only major road in the northern half of the Kingdom Under the Hills is the Maygeld Road. "May" is another name for "hawthorn," and "geld" comes from Germanic for "money." The Maygeld has several toll-areas, so "hawthorn toll" becomes "hawthorn geld" becomes "maygeld." A pretty basic "named for its purpose" situation.
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