Evolution of City Names and Languages

[SeelingCat]

I'm always happy to see effort put into giving cities their endonymic names, especially for indigenous civs - the Inca in Civ 6 were a nice standout in this regard. I may be a bit biased though given my modding work lol.

I think what guides city names in most cases is the use of "Wikipedia Standard," which was mentioned in a Paradox dev diary as being used because it's a sort of neutral, accessible name. Obviously, Civ does not take this as a hard and fast rule, though, as we can see deviations for indigenous civs (Qusqu vs Cuzco/Cusco), ancient civs (Swenett vs Aswan), and cities that have changed names historically (Thăng Long vs Hanoi; Tskhumi vs Sukhumi).

But conversely, these trends are not consistent either: the Maya have Palenque, not Lakamha; Nubia has Musawwarat es-Sufra instead of Aborepi; and Japan uses Tokyo instead of Edo. I think it's a mix of trying to promote immersion while also trying to capture the familiarity of recognizable names. ("Does Aswan sound like it would exist in Ancient Egypt?", "Will people recognize Palenque more?", "Will we get questions about why Tokyo isn't on the Japanese city list?")

I think overall Firaxis has gotten better at representing local names, and also is making more use of diacritics and special characters as font support/tech has developed (although they still don't like letters with dots like Ḥ yet...) - and excited to see how the cities in Civ7 appear!

 

[Foxforch]

I think it's a mix of trying to promote immersion while also trying to capture the familiarity of recognizable names. ("Does Aswan sound like it would exist in Ancient Egypt?", "Will people recognize Palenque more?", "Will we get questions about why Tokyo isn't on the Japanese city list?")

I think overall Firaxis has gotten better at representing local names, and also is making more use of diacritics and special characters as font support/tech has developed (although they still don't like letters with dots like Ḥ yet...) - and excited to see how the cities in Civ7 appear!

The one foot on each lane approach between immersion and recognition I fully understand to not ostracize the majority of English or American players with too much leaning on native or historical names, but is what bummed me in the first place. I believe more native leaning has potential to have people learn more as they play and maybe even get curious like I got when I was exposed to unfamiliar names and now I'm a craze about it. On an earlier example I mentioned Copenhagen or Gothenburg being autracious for Civ5. They did actually go with Göteborg this time in Civ6, and that gave me hope! (Yes, the Goths had their origins in Götaland, but it doesn't have to do with them, it's just a fortified city by the Göta river. Göte-borg) or (Cope in the pasture? The city is not a cope, it's my very own merchant harbor, Køben-havn, and that isn't even Harald Bluetooth's capital! It was Jelling!) Pretty much what my brain tells me xD

More recently when I played as Ludwig II as the Bavarian branch of the Germans. My leader is not a eunuch because Munich happened to be my capital upon foundation. It's Minga dammit! It's really fun to have a look around, but also makes it bitter when coming back and realise what Firaxis missed, but that also makes me more hopeful for how close they're gonna go with Civ7! Our feelings are mutual, friend!

 

[Leyrann]

A district is built and it becomes Batmania, after a local politician.

There actually exists the city of Batman in southeastern Turkey. It's quite large, even, with a population of almost half a million.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

I'm afraid all of you are wrong. The first city the Polish civilization founds should be called Złotoryja, as it is officially recognized as the oldest city in Poland that we know of (though there is certainly debate over that title), possibly the first to be founded by people who could be recognized as Polish. Likewise, I believe the first Swedish city founded should be called Gamla Uppsala, the first Dutch city Nijmegen, the first Egyptian city Men-Nefer, the first Arabian city Dumat al-Jandal, the first Chinese city Yangcheng, the oldest American city Jamestown, etcetera. In general, my opinion is that the cities in the each city list should be ordered by date of founding, rather than perceived importance (or as one modder decided, population amounts recorded from when the civ's leader was alive and in power)

P.S. As for what to call each city, I would go with what they're called in the game's language, rather than native tongue, with the exception of indigenous American settlements

 

[Foxforch]

I'm afraid all of you are wrong. The first city the Polish civilization founds should be called Złotoryja, as it is officially recognized as the oldest city in Poland that we know of (though there is certainly debate over that title), possibly the first to be founded by people who could be recognized as Polish. Likewise, I believe the first Swedish city founded should be called Gamla Uppsala, the first Dutch city Nijmegen, the first Egyptian city Men-Nefer, the first Arabian city Dumat al-Jandal, the first Chinese city Yangcheng, the oldest American city Jamestown, etcetera. In general, my opinion is that the cities in the each city list should be ordered by date of founding, rather than perceived importance (or as one modder decided, population amounts recorded from when the civ's leader was alive and in power)

P.S. As for what to call each city, I would go with what they're called in the game's language, rather than native tongue, with the exception of indigenous American settlements

Złotoryja is an excellent city to include in a Polish city list. The oldest Swedish city would be Sigtuna, which is in the Swedish city list in Civ5, but not Civ6. "Gamla Uppsala" is the name of the old part of the current city of Uppsala that was all the way back called Östra Aros, the main religious center to the Norse. Nijmegen as far I can see is in the Dutch city lists, and Men-nefer is still called Memphis in Civ6, so Americans can confuse it with the city in Tennessee. Dumar al-Jandal still has to make an appearance and Jamestown is an English colony, and has yet to appear in any of the American or English city lists. Yangcheng also has yet to make an appearance. We can only hope they will actually really look back in the next installment in the series.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

My motivation for Gamla Uppsala, is that it predates both Sigtuna and Birka by quite a bit in terms of both historical and archaeological records. For similar reasons, if we ever see a Serbian civilization, I would prefer for the first city founded to be named Stari Ras (although Vinča would probably be an even better pick, depending on whether or not you'd count the proto-Illyrian cultures that lived there as Serbian)

 

[Foxforch]

Östra Aros is its oldest recorded name if we go by Swedish spelling. We didn't call our capital of Svea rike Gamla Uppsala, only Uppsala. "Gamla" simpy means "old". It may appear as the official name when it's described, but it's only so we can differentiate the old town from the newer one. The old town was Uppsala, the contemporary one is also Uppsala.

 

[Gurra09]

When I play a game in English I actually prefer names to be in English if they have an English version, it's all about context. I'm a Swede too and it feels weirder for me to see the city name Göteborg in an English language environment than the anglicised Gothenburg, the latter version fits the context better. Same with Stockholm in a Spanish translation of the game, I'd rather see Estocolmo there. Native names can be used when there isn't an established translation, for another Swedish example you've got cities like Malmö or Västerås in this category. Using translated names that already exist isn't bad even if we tend not to make new ones anymore with newer places. (In real life if another Swede started talking to me about their vacation to "Firenze" rather than Florens, the established Swedish translation of the city name, I'd find them pretentious.)

As for the city list discussion I feel they should be less focused on the cities' age and more on their long-term relevance to the civilisation or whatever you wanna call it. When I play Sweden in Civ 5 it always felt strange that I founded places like Birka and Sigtuna to become huge metropolises in the modern age, old cities that in the real world stopped being all that relevant long ago or even stopped existing, while later cities that actually stuck around and got big like Gothenburg are further down the list and sometimes never get founded. Since cities in the Civ series tend to stick around forever after you found them city lists should prioritise cities that have or had longevity in the real world too. You can still place older cities higher but maybe pick Uppsala, still one of Sweden's largest cities, over Birka, a ruin.

Edit: There's also a geographical element to it, Sigtuna and Birka are essentially located in the greater Stockholm area these days so it's also a bit sad when your whole nation becomes just that one part of the real country if you didn't found many cities. Spreading out cities from different regions in the city lists when possible should be more of a consideration as well in my opinion. I'm sure there are examples of this in other civs too but I'm most familiar with the one I happen to live in.

 

[Krajzen]

In general, my opinion is that the cities in the each city list should be ordered by date of founding, rather than perceived importance (or as one modder decided, population amounts recorded from when the civ's leader was alive and in power)

1) Precise "date of founding" is often very hard to establish, and it sounds like a TON of work just to make orderly city name lists
2) Do you really want to see map covered by obscure cities just because they were the oldest? This way we shall never see Tokyo, Jakarta, Baghdad, Berlin, Warsaw, Venice, Petersburg, Teheran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Addis Abeba, Saigon and other such cities of great importance, just because they were all founded relatively late in their civ's context...

It would also lead to the weird geographic exclusions depending on the pace of colonisation and which areas were settled first. For USA we essentially can only include cities from the north east, forget about Texas or California; for Germany we shall never see its northern Hanseatic cities; for Russia we won't see any city from Ural or Siberia; Ukrainan civ would have cities only from its "old" north - western half; etc etc.

 

[Leyrann]

Nijmegen as far I can see is in the Dutch city lists

And that's very unlikely to change. It's probably in the top 10 and certainly in the top 15 biggest cities in the country by population, and you could make a good argument that it's the 7th or 8th most notable city (behind the big four, Groningen, Eindhoven and maybe Zwolle). On top of it's historical importance.

When I play a game in English I actually prefer names to be in English if they have an English version, it's all about context. I'm a Swede too and it feels weirder for me to see the city name Göteborg in an English language environment than the anglicised Gothenburg, the latter version fits the context better. Same with Stockholm in a Spanish translation of the game, I'd rather see Estocolmo there. Native names can be used when there isn't an established translation, for another Swedish example you've got cities like Malmö or Västerås in this category.

I mostly agree, although imo it does kind of depend on the specific city. I have no issues with Den Haag being The Hague, but Vlissingen being Flushing always confuses the heck out of me, and for the longest time I didn't even know what city it was. In modern times the city just isn't important enough for people to know that it has a separate English name - in particular one that's so very different.

1) Precise "date of founding" is often very hard to establish, and it sounds like a TON of work just to make orderly city name lists

And yeah, this is also an issue. My hometown got city rights sometime around 1250, with the exact date being known, but it was inhabited certainly as early as the 9th or 10th century, and possibly earlier. How are you ever going to trace back that exact year, when most cities will have an uncertainty of up to several centuries?

...not that my hometown has ever been in a Civilization city list, but it does show what the problem is.

 

[Gurra09]

I mostly agree, although imo it does kind of depend on the specific city. I have no issues with Den Haag being The Hague, but Vlissingen being Flushing always confuses the heck out of me, and for the longest time I didn't even know what city it was. In modern times the city just isn't important enough for people to know that it has a separate English name - in particular one that's so very different.

A good point. The difference there is that The Hague, Gothenburg, Venice etc. are still used in contemporary English, the language of the game, so there's no issue in translating those city names while Flushing is an archaic variant that isn't as widely used anymore so Vlissingen becomes the better choice.

 

[pokiehl]

Some of the other posts here reminded me:
I really want an option to randomize the order of city names. At the very least, I’d want the return of Civ 6’s weighted random method.

It’s so boring seeing the same cities each time.

 

[Foxforch]

When I play a game in English I actually prefer names to be in English if they have an English version, it's all about context. I'm a Swede too and it feels weirder for me to see the city name Göteborg in an English language environment than the anglicised Gothenburg, the latter version fits the context better. Same with Stockholm in a Spanish translation of the game, I'd rather see Estocolmo there. Native names can be used when there isn't an established translation, for another Swedish example you've got cities like Malmö or Västerås in this category. Using translated names that already exist isn't bad even if we tend not to make new ones anymore with newer places. (In real life if another Swede started talking to me about their vacation to "Firenze" rather than Florens, the established Swedish translation of the city name, I'd find them pretentious.)

As for the city list discussion I feel they should be less focused on the cities' age and more on their long-term relevance to the civilisation or whatever you wanna call it. When I play Sweden in Civ 5 it always felt strange that I founded places like Birka and Sigtuna to become huge metropolises in the modern age, old cities that in the real world stopped being all that relevant long ago or even stopped existing, while later cities that actually stuck around and got big like Gothenburg are further down the list and sometimes never get founded. Since cities in the Civ series tend to stick around forever after you found them city lists should prioritise cities that have or had longevity in the real world too. You can still place older cities higher but maybe pick Uppsala, still one of Sweden's largest cities, over Birka, a ruin.

Edit: There's also a geographical element to it, Sigtuna and Birka are essentially located in the greater Stockholm area these days so it's also a bit sad when your whole nation becomes just that one part of the real country if you didn't found many cities. Spreading out cities from different regions in the city lists when possible should be more of a consideration as well in my opinion. I'm sure there are examples of this in other civs too but I'm most familiar with the one I happen to live in.

If I play as Spain and conquer Stockholm, I would name it to Estocolmo. I would anglicize cities if I played as the English or Americans, change Köln to a perfume, and München into Munich, the city of eunuchs.

Indeed, Birka was a strange choice for Sweden in Civ5. Sigtuna is arguable, but also really old to fit a Norse civ more, and they're both indeed too close to Stockholm, which wasn't founded until much later. Firaxis inlcuded Finnish cities as well in Civ5, and in Civ6 they included Tallinn, or "Reval" as we called it, abandoned most of the Finnish cities to focus on Swedish ones and the country's history, even included Fort Christina, which shows Firaxis taking it more seriously and I very much appreciate it. I really hope they do even better in Civ7! (if they make it, just please ffs make the leader talk older Swedish, not 2025 Stockholm Swedish with old words inserted, IT'S CRINGE)

 

[Leyrann]

change Köln to a perfume

Friendly reminder that "eau de Cologne" is literally named after the city, not the other way around. It means "water of Cologne".

Also, your mention of Fort Christina made me think: It'd be fun if at least some civilizations had a separate city list for colonies, which would be defined as cities settled a significant distance away from any existing cities that aren't colonies. I suppose the primary issue would be that many civilizations don't have city names for this purpose, although you could perhaps stretch some of them - e.g. you could use frontier cities, or cities that, despite being associated with the civilization (e.g. founded by them?) were only under their control for a limited amount of time.

 

[Foxforch]

Friendly reminder that "eau de Cologne" is literally named after the city, not the other way around. It means "water of Cologne".

Also, your mention of Fort Christina made me think: It'd be fun if at least some civilizations had a separate city list for colonies, which would be defined as cities settled a significant distance away from any existing cities that aren't colonies. I suppose the primary issue would be that many civilizations don't have city names for this purpose, although you could perhaps stretch some of them - e.g. you could use frontier cities, or cities that, despite being associated with the civilization (e.g. founded by them?) were only under their control for a limited amount of time.

Thanks for the reminder, but I was obviously joking about Cologne, making Munich a hint to it.

I've had those ideas as well. A what if. Civs come with their list of colonies when settling on different continents.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Do you really want to see map covered by obscure cities just because they were the oldest? This way we shall never see Tokyo, Jakarta, Baghdad, Berlin, Warsaw, Venice, Petersburg, Teheran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Addis Abeba, Saigon and other such cities of great importance, just because they were all founded relatively late in their civ's context...

It would also lead to the weird geographic exclusions depending on the pace of colonisation and which areas were settled first. For USA we essentially can only include cities from the north east, forget about Texas or California; for Germany we shall never see its northern Hanseatic cities; for Russia we won't see any city from Ural or Siberia; Ukrainan civ would have cities only from its "old" north - western half; etc etc.

I personally wouldn't have an issue with that, if for no other reason than that I prefer the deep cuts over the obvious references

 

[Futumch]

There was a game for the Amiga called Supremacy. You controlled a bunch of planets, and the objective was to conquer all of your opponents' planets. One of the nifty parts of the game was that if you lost a planet to the computer player, it would rename them to some gibberish word. Of course when you conquered it back, you could change the name again. Must have been hell for interplanetary mail services, but them's the breaks.

If a captured city can be renamed by a human player, perhaps the computer players should do the same thing ? We even have modern examples of this in Königsberg / Kaliningrad after WW2.

Also, I'm hardly one to weigh in on the authenticity of names, given that I always rename my cities to whatever I feel like at the time. Towns in Tasmania, Buckethead album names, moons in the solar system, Icelandic towns - have all provided city names in my games.

 

[V. Soma]

City names is an interesting topic - but I think all cities should be named according to the language the game is set to in general.
I may play as China's leader, but I could not play my civ as China with my cities named with Chinese graphs I see as mystical drawings...

 

[Foxforch]

City names is an interesting topic - but I think all cities should be named according to the language the game is set to in general.
I may play as China's leader, but I could not play my civ as China with my cities named with Chinese graphs I see as mystical drawings...

Just go by Xiányáng, Běijīng, Guǎngzhōu, Shànghǎi etc!

In Civ5, none of these symbols worked on anything, except for the acute accent ´ but they did in Civ6. Not enough though, because we still cannot use carons on a few letters such as Y and not even N I believe... Ḥ is also not thought of yet, so let's hope they make it in Civ7!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

There actually exists the city of Batman in southeastern Turkey. It's quite large, even, with a population of almost half a million.

I believe that's the same Batman which is on Macedon's city list.

I'm afraid all of you are wrong. The first city the Polish civilization founds should be called Złotoryja, as it is officially recognized as the oldest city in Poland that we know of (though there is certainly debate over that title), possibly the first to be founded by people who could be recognized as Polish. Likewise, I believe the first Swedish city founded should be called Gamla Uppsala, the first Dutch city Nijmegen, the first Egyptian city Men-Nefer, the first Arabian city Dumat al-Jandal, the first Chinese city Yangcheng, the oldest American city Jamestown, etcetera. In general, my opinion is that the cities in the each city list should be ordered by date of founding, rather than perceived importance (or as one modder decided, population amounts recorded from when the civ's leader was alive and in power)

P.S. As for what to call each city, I would go with what they're called in the game's language, rather than native tongue, with the exception of indigenous American settlements

Zlotoryja, despite being the oldest settlement in Poland, only has about a population of 15,000 today and has not gone much above that throughout it's history. Assuming that the first city being founded would also be the capital why should that be chosen over the likes of Warsaw or Krakow?
Regarding another civ like England, the oldest "settlement" seems to be Colchester which didn't actually receive city status until 2022.