How To Become a Fantasy Writer: Worldbuilding - Names of Places
Naming locations is a process you will have to go through eventually. Whether when planning your narrative, writing or drawing your map.
The Name of Places, like the Names of People, serves to know what or who is being talked about in a certain interaction, and these can change, if you change any of these parameters. Namely, who is talking about that place, who is recording the information or who has power over it.
Very often, the names of settlements originate from a geographic, architectural feature or the importance of resources, which are given in the language of the first colonizing peoples of the area. The truth is that many have been lost in time or in other foreign languages, rarely keeping their original name.
Geographic features
Across all the civilizations that have spread throughout our history, an element of nomenclature that has always stood out has been the geographic features that people populated.
In the beginning of humanity, the advantage of the terrain was crucial and that is why our ancestors settled in strategic places. It is for this reason that we see millions of places with names starting with Vale, Mount, River or Creek, usually accompanied by another word that distinguishes them from the others (Farm Valley, New Mount, Big Creek, etc...).
The city of Porto, for example, has a name that descends from the Latin word Portus, which meant port, which in turn comes from Pertus, the common origin of porto, fjord (Norway) and firth (England).
In your narrative you might want to use the natural characteristics of your world, in order to call its primordial name to each place. You don't always have to, but your oldest cities, at least, must have an origin of this kind.
Architectonic
Some landmarks erected by the populations may also originate land names. Because of that, they can be repeated over and over again, most likely because their creators thought they were the only one to exist.
In Portugal we have at least three Atalaia's, a word used to describe a watchtower. Being on the lookout is also a verb/action that comes from this building.
In the USA, we can find several, Fort's (Lauderdale, Worth, Myers, etc.).
In my world, two places that act like passages over a narrow sea, I called them Nan Sethev and Bei Sethev, Sethev being, literally, the meaning of bridge in the Old Tongue. Nan and Bei, are South and North, just like in Mandarin Chinese.
Resources
This case is more rare however it may happen that when exploring the land around it, its settlers found material resources, which consequently lead them to settle there, being Ouro or Prata the most used, both in Portuguese (Castanheiro do Ouro), as in English (Silver Springs).
Take my hometown of Abrantes, for example:
Around 8 centuries BC, the locals named it the land of Tubucci, and, according to legend, it was the center of a small kingdom that stretched from Leiria to Portalegre. Because it is so far back in time, its meaning in the language of the time does not reach us.
Tubucci or Tabucci was adopted into Latin by the Romans but later they began calling the town "Aurantes", coming from the Latin word Aurum, for Gold, of which there were believed to be some deposits in the river. This is the most likely explanation, but there is a Legend that tells another way of acquiring the name.
Which brings us to the next point.
Historical
In the case of our world, the space of time elapsed until the present day, or even a point in time when human civilization was able to retain information at a satisfactory level, many years and many peoples passed through the same places we are talking about .
This has led to many original names being lost in the waves of time.
It also led to the emergence of many others that are still used today.
Because there are many examples, I decided to divide them by categories, to make the examples easier.
Saints
People with Catholic-Christian religious value, which has influenced and continues to influence the entire West, even in the names of places. In Portugal it is very common to see a Santa Susana, a São Miguel do Rio Torto (which also brings together the geography) or a Santa Maria da Feira.
Search your Religion for names you can "lend" to settlements.
Events
Events, whether big or small, may only be signposted to the place where they took place but often also give their name to the same place, as the example of King's Landing, in Game of Thrones, where the King, in fact, landed his dragon.
Ferdinand Magellan, because in Portugal, at the time, a person with big feet was called "Patagão", when he passed the region south of Argentina, through the Strait of Magellan, he noticed that the locals all had big feet. Therefore, he called that "The Land of the Bigfeet" or "Patagonia".
Legends
The legends are a product of the cultural mindset of the people of the region and, more often than not, contain a great deal of truth about what they say.
Let’s go back to Abrantes’ example:
After the Romans named it Aurantes, the entire Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Moors, coming from North Africa. When D. Afonso Henriques took the city for the newly formed Portugal, there was a situation with the Alcaide and his daughter, which would determine the most up-to-date version of the name, according to the Legend.
Very briefly, Zahara, the daughter of Alcaide Ibrahim Zaid, goes her father with a small dilemma, whether to open the door to the Knight who is courting her, seeing that she already has a boyfriend. What she doesn't know is that her boyfriend is also her half-brother and that he is listening to her conversation with their father. Knowing this detail, the Alcaide responds with the following sentence "Abre antes ao Cavaleiro." ( "Just open it to the Knight." ).
The boyfriend, who also didn't know about the blood ties they had, and possessed by jealousy and such betrayal, ran through the streets of the village shouting: "Abre antes! Abre antes! Abre antes!"
When speaking fast the "e" drops and it is just Abr'antes.
Use a short story to empower the meaning it has for local people, connecting different cultures and languages.
If you didn't have the opportunity, check out my article on how to build a History. Maybe you'll gain some inspiration for naming your locations.