Imaginary Civilization Names?

dominatr

Smoke Jaguar
Joined
Apr 11, 2010
Messages
922
Hey i am making a mod, i've mad the map and changed the rules and whatnot, but i am stuck on coming up with names for my Civilizations! I don't want anything to sound too familiar, so its sort of tough for me to figure out what to name them. Can someone help me come up with some original names for my empires?
 
Tough to name a civ without knowing anything about it... what part of the world, what types of units, what time in history, maybe even a bit of historial background, etc... I'm sure a google search should bring up tons of ideas; I found 20 sample names in a couple minutes; can mix, match to your hearts content. Plus you can use descriptions in names such as 'The Federated Republic of...", "Socialist Repulic..."

Heres some helpful name generators, etc I found:

List of Fictional Countries
Place Name generator
Random Town Name generator
Country Name generator

Theres lots of name generators around on the net.. Hope this helps a bit.
 
Pick a country that is somewhat reminescent of your new civilisation. Find it's national language, and find out the word for "People", "Country", "Kingdom", or a landmark, like "River", "Mountain" or a deity's name, or something like that, then mash them together and modify the word a bit.

For example, if you had a civilisation that was historically barbaric, later becoming a series of kingdoms unified under a loose confederation in to a sort of an empire, with a penchant for theology and warfare, then take Germany as a rough analogue. Then, we have the German language.

Take "Forest Folk", or example, and translate it, and you get "Waldvolk", if I'm not mistaken. Now, modify it as much as you like. You might get "Valdoksland" or something. Land of the Valdoks, who came from the old region Valdok, which in proto-Valdokian was once "Waldvolk", 'people of the forest'.

Of you could take "Green Mountain". Translate to "Gruenberg". Now modify it. Say you get "Grenbarrg" or something. The people would be Grenbarrgs or Grenbarrgers. Now they travelled across the sea and settled an area of a new land and set up a kingdom, and called it Grenberrgia. This kingdom then dominated the whole region, and established a modern country, which is now called Granberland, as the language has evolved in time.

This is just an idea. :)
 
Thaks guys, so i've been working my imagination hard and i am starting to make some up and these name things are helping a lot. So far what i have is:

Zekayag- a tribe which lives in a coastal jungle littered with diamonds and coffee beans, and they are somewhat aggressive, but can be a good ally in the right times.

Kuwary- A tribe which lives on an isthmus to the south of Zekayag. They are skilled with traveling by water, and they were masks with horns and feathers on them. They are aggressive and don't like to cooperate.

Trache- a small band which eventually grew to a larger populateion. They live to the west of Zekayag, in a heavily mountainous area. These men are rugged and fair, and can be kind when they need to be.

What i did was i laid out all of the starting locations for the tribes all over the map, and now i am naming them and basing them around the region they are in. I have 28 more to go,
 
I just bang on a keyboard then add or remove letters as needed. Lets Try!

Gerghi

See, I just invented that. I didn't even need to add/remove letters at all. Lets Try again!

Bgsaijkfnsd

Take out some letters, add some new ones, and we get

Bagsifindish.

See! Easy!

Spoiler :
I've been to Bagsifindish once. It lies across the Bugyd sea, on the continent of Hujvofgha. I went o the capitol, Pijsba, and a lovely young handmaiden of the grand Figrbolt's wife fed me figs on the beach.
 
Interesting thread. I'm kind of thinking of renaming all the civs in a generic epic I'm working on that mimics history without actually being bound by any real history or the enevitable anachronisms that spring up everywhere.

Will you also rename all the cities for each civ? There's also leader names, great leaders etc to think about too.
 
Interesting thread. I'm kind of thinking of renaming all the civs in a generic epic I'm working on that mimics history without actually being bound by any real history or the enevitable anachronisms that spring up everywhere.

Will you also rename all the cities for each civ? There's also leader names, great leaders etc to think about too.

well, after i come up with a name, i name the cities in a similar way, and the leaders follow that same thing.
Like for example if i name a civilization:
Gehedery

Then the City list would be
Ranhedra
Tered
Mastenar
Hederon
Meher Nanos
Aldra
Gerni
Hendri Harma
Enertima

If i named it Maskahatchee
they would be
Twin River's Cross
Featherfold
Seneyase
Mannahaquitan
Quanhauken
Mossamogree
Upper Chief's Cross
Natchisantarin
Tornahackee

That's usually just what i do. There's something about creating my own civs thats so interesting to me, and i want to do it for this mod. I've done it before, but it's not an easy process to make a civ that sounds cool, and that i can attach a story to it. Sure, i could toss some random on and call it done, but i want to find something to enrich the mod, not just be a filler.
 
I just bang on a keyboard then add or remove letters as needed. Lets Try!

Gerghi

See, I just invented that. I didn't even need to add/remove letters at all. Lets Try again!

Bgsaijkfnsd

Take out some letters, add some new ones, and we get

Bagsifindish.

See! Easy!

Spoiler :
I've been to Bagsifindish once. It lies across the Bugyd sea, on the continent of Hujvofgha. I went o the capitol, Pijsba, and a lovely young handmaiden of the grand Figrbolt's wife fed me figs on the beach.

You know, "Fig on the Beach" is the national drink of Bagsifindish. ;)
 
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