Fantasy
A good fantasy place-name usually does more than sound old and distant. The best ones carry a bit of history in them.
You can often hear who named a place, who renamed it, and who got written out. A capital with a polished new title. A border town that still keeps the older name in the market and the official one on the maps. A ruined fort whose original word no one can quite pronounce anymore.
That sort of thing does more for a world than another string of syllables ever could. It tells you where the power went.
You can often hear who named a place, who renamed it, and who got written out. A capital with a polished new title. A border town that still keeps the older name in the market and the official one on the maps. A ruined fort whose original word no one can quite pronounce anymore.
That sort of thing does more for a world than another string of syllables ever could. It tells you where the power went.
The danger is when the name starts doing all the work. A place can be called something beautifully loaded and still feel like cardboard if the people there have no reason to use it. In practice, the local nickname often tells you more than the grand old official version. Administrations rename things. Residents usually just keep talking.