[ Author’s note: This blog post was originally made on the now-retired Bearblog website I ran for a brief period. The original date published was May 08, 2024. ]
This weekend, I spent the majority of my worldbuilding energy on developing the beginnings of my physical atlas project. I’m a huge nerd about geology, so once I got the idea to create a comprehensive physical atlas of Palima, I knew it was the perfect excuse to get my hands on some quality atlases of Earth.
Now, I’m a guy on a budget, so I dropped by the nearest used book store and after some digging, came across a copy of the National Geographic Concise Atlas of the World 1 (2nd Edition) for $8.75.
It’s definitely out-of-date. The particular edition I unearthed was published in 2008; it still describes human-influenced climate change as speculated rather than confirmed.
I bought it anyways; while I was looking for something a bit more recent, it still serves as a valuable reference tool for what sort of graphics and information to include in Palima’s atlas.
Which brings me to the subject of this post: tackling the massive task of naming Palima’s geographic features, cities, states, continents, and so on. This is a challenge that I really don’t want to fall short on—by means of burnout or poor execution. I know from experience that badly-named places have the capacity to completely remove the reader from an immersive experience.
The question, then, is: How do I design a method of naming significant places (both “real” and “imaginary”2) on a global scale that achieves the balance of quality versus burnout?
I think I’ve cracked the code in my own (very specific) case. The goal: an in-universe atlas, authored by the Aetian Cartographers Guild (AKA yours truly, moi), (Now In English! Translation graciously provided by Hale Teacrow).
Before we go any further, let me make the massive disclaimer that this process is by no means quick or snappy. Make no mistake; it has been (and will probably continue to be) time-consuming, and at times, frustrating. But for me, the rewards outweigh the arduousness of some tasks. (Taking breaks helps a lot.)
Process
On my worldbuilding youtube adventures,3 I came across an excellent video by Tim Hickson over at Hello Future Me concerning the logistics of placenaming; I’m largely following his process here; it’s a methodical system that works well if you’re looking for some real-world insight behind your technique.
Tim’s technique considers several types of influences and follows a few guidelines.
Tim’s Technique High Points
- Remember these three things: People, Place, History. These will be the primary influences on your place names.
- It’s useful to have a pre-established set of vocabulary in the regional language for common features, i.e. “forest”, “mountain”, etc.
- Place names aren’t static; remember the influence of time is a powerful one. Language, cultures, and even landscapes change over time. How might these influence your placenames?
- Importantly, power and colonization are major factors. Which populations are in power will influence how place names evolve. Some places might have multiple names, if there are multiple powers wrestling for authority. Endonyms are names given to places by native populations; exonyms are names given to places by non-native populations. It will be helpful to have a map of cultures and linguistic groups.
- Historic maps of cultural and linguistic migration are helpful for hinting at where ancient cultures might have once thrived, or where currently thriving cultures once migrated from.
Elaboration
To make this process much easier on myself, I already had the basis of a conlang, or at least the characteristics of the language I’m using. Depending on your commitment to conlanging, this can be a highly laborious process, even to develop a proverbial sketch of the language you’re working with. Things are, of course, a bit easier if you aren’t dealing with a factor of conlanging.
I already have my perennially active project of conlanging Aetian, the language of the protagonists of Aether. I doubt I’ll ever reach a Tolkien-like level of development with Aetian, but thankfully I believe it’s solidified enough that it has an identifiable character to it. That is the level of granularity I needed to make this method work. I have a spreadsheet of about 150 Aetian words relating to geography and culture that influences the Aetian names of significant landmarks and locations; this spreadsheet is inevitably growing as I discover new gaps in the language’s ability to meet my worldbuilding needs. I’d recommend starting out with a table with columns for the translation in your native language, your conlang, and a literal translation. I don’t have a column for notes in this file, but that might be worth considering, too.
The final helpful (if not essential) ingredient to have in this process is, of course, a map. I found that while a simple topographical map was helpful for sketching out rough borders between states, something with a bit more granularity was helpful for the placement of my cities. Knowing the locations of things like the highest mountain ranges, tectonic plate boundaries, volcanic regions, deep versus shallow oceans, mineral deposits, and so on, proved invaluable for doing most of my thinking for me.
This is where this method has the potential to become complex and somewhat unwieldy; hopping back and forth between conlanging and placenaming can be a demanding task, no matter how up to it you feel. The trick I’ve found is to take it in small doses; as soon as it starts to get frustrating, I know I need to take a break and step back. Whether that means simply switching gears to something different, like writing, or going for a walk, depends on how much the frustration feels like it’s “sticking.”
Results So Far
Like I mentioned, this is not a technique that could be classified as “fast” by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a bit less labor-intensive than the other ways I’ve attempted so far, which lacked organization or any sort of true method.
That said, I’m pleased with how things are turning out.
As I work, I’m noticing a trend that might prove useful to keep track of. Physical features (geographic or otherwise) tend to have names related to nearby cities; since I’m following Tim Hickson’s suggested process here, this makes sense. Even if I wasn’t following his method, I think this would still make intuitive sense. This can be demonstrated in real life, too. Consider Salt Lake City, Utah; Chattanooga, Tennessee, whose name is often translated from the Creek Native Chat-to-to-noog-gee (‘rock rising to a point’), thought to reference the nearby Lookout Mountain.
Part of the nature of naming places is using some sort of map; another trend I’m noticing is that (likely as a result of the map-centric process) the names are heavily influenced by what is displayed on the map at a given time. When I’m looking at my political maps, I tend to think more of the cultural influences of names. When I’m looking at a physical or topographic map, I lean more towards geography-centric names. Since I don’t have any historic maps, I’m noticing a distinct lack of these types of place names. This trend is, of course, a result of some of my own oversights; however, it’s worth considering when you name your own places. It might be useful to look at multiple maps at once, if you have the screen real estate for that. You might also consider creating some sort of system for devising names; considering geographic names first, then culture-centric names, then history-centric names.4
Thoughts
While I’m not very far along in this process, I can say one thing for certain; going into this project, I felt like I had a decently-ish fleshed out history for Palima. After the first few rounds of placenaming, I can say that I wish I had a full planetary history to work with. My maps are currently feeling heavily biased towards “place”-heavy place names, even given the real world-precedent of this being typical.
Moving forward, I want to work on creating a more comprehensive history of the planet in order to name places in a way that has a bit more variety than currently demonstrated.
Notes
- That’s not an affiliate link, by the way–I’m not interested in that kind of monetary gain from this project. See the blog’s About page for more information on my stances on that. ↩︎
- “Real” in the sense that, in-universe, these features are things that are, loosely-speaking, physical in nature. (i.e. mountains, oceans, cities, deserts) “Imaginary” in the sense that, in-universe, these features are arbitrary and designed. (i.e. borders) ↩︎
- See the Resources page of the blog to check out the complete playlist of videos referenced in my posts, as well as the channels I most highly recommend for the style of worldbuilding I’m doing here. ↩︎
- Keep in mind, of course, that there is no real black-and-white divide between geography, culture, and history. They’re simply useful frameworks for us to use when systematically constructing a fictional world. ↩︎
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