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Old 05-06-2022, 05:59 PM   #21
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
I'm working on my space opera setting, gearing up for a game set there. (My Marvel Shadowguard game is on hiatus again due to burnout.)

I'm looking for names I can use for cities, planets, space stations, and systems for a sector of space situated roughly 40 to 60 lightyears from Earth.

So, ideas? Functional, fanciful, pop/geek culture references and homages, "New $place_on_Earth", and mythological names are all welcome! You don't need to go into detail; I just suck at names (this is known).

And for the record, planet Bob is already accounted for! :)
Planet "My Patron I wish to flatter".

Planet "Some religious or ideological reference"

Planet "Classical mythological character" (you will run out of these but as long as you have it go with custom).

Planet "A relation of mine"

Planet "Weird event happened here"

Planet "Just happens to remind me of something"

Planet "I'm to tired to think of anything"
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Old 05-06-2022, 06:42 PM   #22
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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Planet "Some religious or ideological reference"

Planet "Classical mythological character" (you will run out of these but as long as you have it go with custom).
The US Geological Survey maintains a Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature for the IAU. Sorting through this data can provide a list of inoffensive divine and mythological names from a deliberately diverse array of cultures.
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Old 05-06-2022, 09:09 PM   #23
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

And typos. Nome Alaska there was a dot on the map and someone wrote name? and was read as Nome.
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Old 05-06-2022, 10:36 PM   #24
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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And typos. Nome Alaska there was a dot on the map and someone wrote name? and was read as Nome.
I've seen the transcripts for the naming of Chicken, Alaska (National Archives unit NS12- Anchorage Branch Office). They're explicit that it's said tar-ma-gin, but couldn't agree on how it's spelled (ptarmigan), and so wrote "chicken" on the paperwork sent to the Territorial Governor.

But many of the names of Alaskan towns are odd due to orthography issues for native names... Igagigagik is (I've been told by a resident" supposed to be closer to Iqagigagiq. (The q being the "back of mouth k", not quite the same as the German CH nor the Russian Х.) And it's a different place from Iggagik.

Oh, and Wasilla is "wah-sill-ah", and yes, it's a reversal of "all I saw"... not a native derived name.
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Old 06-02-2022, 06:22 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

"Big" might work but there is nothing in space that is particularly big, or high or otherwise has an obvious relation with anything else. Even "gas giants" may dwarf planets but aren't big compared to space.By contrast Mississippi, Superior, etc reference something obviously really big (and in Superiors case higher than some things).

A famous PR scam. Hence "Greenland". Though Vinland was not so obnoxious: you can get grapes there I believe (fruit wines and brandies were more famous in the area for a long time).

A political upheaval in the past, hence the rather cheeky "New Mexico" (though one wonders if "England" without even adding the qualification of New is not more cheeky). Oh and don't forget all those European towns that have multiple names that changed every war.
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Old 06-03-2022, 05:07 AM   #26
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
I'm working on my space opera setting, gearing up for a game set there. (My Marvel Shadowguard game is on hiatus again due to burnout.)

I'm looking for names I can use for cities, planets, space stations, and systems for a sector of space situated roughly 40 to 60 lightyears from Earth.

So, ideas? Functional, fanciful, pop/geek culture references and homages, "New $place_on_Earth", and mythological names are all welcome! You don't need to go into detail; I just suck at names (this is known).

And for the record, planet Bob is already accounted for! :)
There's a book I've recommended several times. Michael Grant's A Guide to the Ancient World. It's basically a dictionary of classical place names.

Any who grew up watching Star Trek: TOS or Doctor Who will find many of these names sound familiar. Similarly, fans of Golden Age Sci Fi will also get some nostalgia with these names. The reason is that many of those writers drew their planetary names, consciously or not, from similar sources.
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Old 06-03-2022, 05:10 AM   #27
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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"Big" might work but there is nothing in space that is particularly big, or high or otherwise has an obvious relation with anything else. Even "gas giants" may dwarf planets but aren't big compared to space.By contrast Mississippi, Superior, etc reference something obviously really big (and in Superiors case higher than some things).
Except that isn't how most things actually got named. You name things when bunches of people need a way to talk about them and distinguish them from other thing. Stuff that isn't gets a map coordinate, or a catalog number that points to a map coordinate.

The Big River doesn't need to be especially big, it just needs to be bigger than the Muddy River, the Ugly Fish River and Zack's Cabin Stream the locals who originally called it than needed to distinguish it from. The fact that there are 300 bigger rivers on the planet didn't matter - they weren't settled near them and didn't need to talk about them. Yeah OK Zack's Cabin Stream is actually the headwaters of the biggest river system on the planet, but right where we were when we named it, it's much tinier than the Big River that flows 40 miles into Funny Shaped Lake.
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Old 06-05-2022, 09:54 AM   #28
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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The Big River doesn't need to be especially big, it just needs to be bigger than the Muddy River, the Ugly Fish River and Zack's Cabin Stream the locals who originally called it than needed to distinguish it from. The fact that there are 300 bigger rivers on the planet didn't matter - they weren't settled near them and didn't need to talk about them. Yeah OK Zack's Cabin Stream is actually the headwaters of the biggest river system on the planet, but right where we were when we named it, it's much tinier than the Big River that flows 40 miles into Funny Shaped Lake.
To say nothing of the rivers that have names that mean river. The people who named it didn't need to distinguish it from other rivers because it was the only one important enough to them to be THE river.
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Old 06-05-2022, 06:04 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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To say nothing of the rivers that have names that mean river. The people who named it didn't need to distinguish it from other rivers because it was the only one important enough to them to be THE river.
Then we have place names that are tautologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...al_place_names And with increased tourism in Iceland I'm noticing it happen in real time. Foreigners talk about Gullfoss Waterfall or Dettifoss Waterfall even though the bold ending means the same thing as the following word. Same with other geological features.
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Old 06-06-2022, 04:31 PM   #30
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Default Re: [Space/Sci-Fi] I Need Some Names

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To say nothing of the rivers that have names that mean river. The people who named it didn't need to distinguish it from other rivers because it was the only one important enough to them to be THE river.
I used to think that the Watery River down in North Carolina had a weird name. But once I heard that Maekong as Maekong River means "river," and thus the Maekong River was literally the River River, I decided that Watery wasn't such a bad name for a river.
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