D&D General Help Me Rename a Culture in My Campaign

[Retreater]

Before starting this conversation, I want to say that I'm not looking for discussion about why the game shouldn't be politically correct. This is an issue in my game, and I want to fix it. This has been a part of my setting for nearly 20 years, and I feel I'm too entrenched with the old name to come up with something I like just as well.
So there's a duergar-like civilization of evil dwarves that were regular dwarves until they were corrupted by an evil entity. They have been referred to as the black dwarves and their citadel as The Black City. In addition to being not terribly creative, it can also be problematic to some players (and I hope to one day publish this setting).
So do you have any good suggestions?
(If it's relevant, I can share more information about their culture for inspiration.)

 

[el-remmen]

You might start with just putting some of the defining or central characteristics of these dwarves into a thesaurus and/or translator app. I often take bits and pieces of words from other languages and mash them up and change the order to come up with stuff that has some kind of reverberation with the original idea but is not as prosaic.

So for example, I might look up words for dark, corrupt, cloudy, shady, worshippers, basalt (a black stone), etc. . . in latin or ancient greek or aramaic, or so on.

 

[el-remmen]

So for example, I liked the idea of corrupt dwarves being represented by a "cracked foundation" (probably because in my view of "typical" dwarves a foundation of lawfulness, tradition, and architecture are crucial cultural elements). So I put "cracked foundation" into a google translator into icelandic (which I do not speak) and it came back with "klikkaður grunnur" so I might play around with those syllables or just call them grunnur dwarves. The reference to foundation makes sense both to "traditional" dwarves and the corrupt ones who probably feel like their worship of the corrupt entity is the "authentic" way.

 

[Bawylie]

Mafic Dwarves (after mafic rocks such as basalt).
Or Ferro Dwarves (again playing on igneous rocks) but keeping a familiar sound and concept while straying from a racially charged name.

 

[touc]

Great responses so I'll add that in my current Kingmaker campaign, the "Nomen Centaurs" (get it, "no men") are being civilized by another adventuring group. Nomen is the derogatory name assigned by the human culture to one most don't care to understand. Their true culture is ancient and they have their own name, rituals, and history beyond just being horse-men. So, it could be the same for you. Other races might be lazy and simply call it the "Black City" due to all the pollution, stone color, or whatever. You can still play this into the game.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Before starting this conversation, I want to say that I'm not looking for discussion about why the game shouldn't be politically correct. This is an issue in my game, and I want to fix it. This has been a part of my setting for nearly 20 years, and I feel I'm too entrenched with the old name to come up with something I like just as well.
So there's a duergar-like civilization of evil dwarves that were regular dwarves until they were corrupted by an evil entity. They have been referred to as the black dwarves and their citadel as The Black City. In addition to being not terribly creative, it can also be problematic to some players (and I hope to one day publish this setting).
So do you have any good suggestions?
(If it's relevant, I can share more information about their culture for inspiration.)

If your primary concern is just real-world associations distracting people; then synonyms are your friend. The Sable City. The Ebon City.

If you're concerned that even this masked association with colour is problematic, then just ask yourself what the blackness in your original name symbolised. Was it the absence of light? (in which case 'dark', 'tenebrous', 'shadow') Or was it a straight implication of evil? (in which case 'base', 'rotten', 'damned').

 

[DEFCON 1]

The game already has 'deep gnomes' called Svirfneblin... so you can always go with 'deep dwarves' as the descriptor and then some other name for their actual race name (like Grunnur as @el-remmen put forth, which I rather like.)

What I found interesting myself when I went to the google translator is that I discovered that 'dwarf' in Icelandic is 'dvergur', which pretty much explains how the name 'duergar' came about.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Query: Are you trying to come up with what they call themselves, or what others call them?

Because by no means do those have to be the same thing.

 

[Retreater]

Query: Are you trying to come up with what they call themselves, or what others call them?

Because by no means do those have to be the same thing.

More what others would call them and how I reference it. They would probably just refer to themselves as dwarves. The name they gave their citadel is Maelgrym. But if something cooler comes about from this discussion, I'll definitely consider that.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"The name they gave their citadel is Maelgrym."

That's perfect. I would have other races just call them "Grim"!

I can see "Black Dwarves" being problematic, but if they themselves were named something different would you keep "The Black City"? Assuming it is actually literally that colour. I don't really have the..."lineage" to parse whether that would be offensive.