Help with a city name...

[thormagni]

Heya folks. I am really thinking about brushing the dust off of my previous work on a superhero RPG city that my friend Charlie and I started about seven years ago. I have it on good authority that there is a deluxe, leatherbound edition of Mutants and Masterminds coming my way for Father's Day and since I'm kinda hot on the system right now, I'd like to see if I can make it work for my city.

At the time we created the city (and first posted the Web pages) we called it Liberty City, N.J. However, about a year or two later, I found out that Grand Theft Auto also used the Liberty City name (although theirs is a thinly veiled NYC, I believe.)

When Charlie and I first started working on Liberty City there were only three superhero RPG cities that I knew of:
* Hudson City (for Dark Champions/Champions)
* Bay City (for Fuzion/Champions: the New Millennium)
* San Angelo (for Champions and later Mutants and Masterminds.)

Other names that are already taken include:
* Empire City (Silver Age Sentinels)
* Millennium City (Champions 5th edition)
* Freedom City (Mutants and Masterminds)
* New Century City (a planned, but never finished East Coast city for the San Angelo setting.)
* Century Station (Palladium's Heroes Unlimited)
* Paragon City (City of Heroes MMORPG)

And of course, any names used in the comics would be bad such as The City (The Tick), Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City, Keystone City, Ivy City, etc.

In any case, I'd like to come up with a new name for the city with the same theme -- Liberty, Justice, Independence, Freedom, etc. It should be something that is not already a common city name in the U.S. And I want to keep it in New Jersey.

So far, the best name I have come up with is "Port Liberty," but I'm not completely happy with that. So I thought I would open it up to my friends and see what suggestions you all have.

 

[Fyrestryke]

What if we don't change the liberty, but change 'city'...?

Borough, Center, Village, etc....?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

What is your intention? Are you shooting for a clean and orderly "Metropolis" or a dark and chaotic "Gotham"? I assume the first since your dedication to truth, justice, and the American way as part of the title, but not 100%. I'm assuming you are shooting for more of a "DC Universe" idea since you're not just going with the names of actual cities and intending them to be metaphorical analogs to what a real world city "represents" (i.e. Metropolis=Chicago, Gotham=New York, etc.)

Anyway, since it is in Jersey you could rename it "Garden City" since it is the "Garden State" after all. Also, if you want to have it semi-futuristic or loosely based on our world you could just call it "The Sprawl" since in the years to come what we call cities today are just going to become boroughs of one large mega-metropolis which we loosely call "BosWash" today (Boston down the coast to Washington D.C.)

Some ideas off of the info we have...

Independence Station, NJ
Libertyville, NJ
Freedom Point, NJ
Freedom Harbor, NJ

Anyway, more info if needed?

 

[thormagni]

Ooh, I like "Liberty Harbor." That might be the name.

 

[Bob_Probst]

You could limit your world to a shopping mall called "Liberty Centre Commons".

There's plenty of opportunities for Teen Mutants. There'd be the regular run ins with local security wanting the heros to stop wrecking things: "Damn it Mall Walker! That's the third display you've ruined this week! Skateboarders are my jurisdiction, ya hear!"

 

[Fyrestryke]

Liberty Harbor - nice
Independence Station - nice

http://www.libertyharbor.com/ - possible oops...
http://www.independencestation.com/ - bah!
http://www.libertystation.com/ - Egads!

 

[thormagni]

http://www.libertyharbor.com/ - possible oops...
http://www.independencestation.com/ - bah!
http://www.libertystation.com/ - Egads!

I think I am leaning toward Port Liberty, because it kind of matches up with my already written history about the city's importance as a port during the Revolution (and because it wouldn't require much changing to my already-existing graphics.) But I will probably use some of the other suggestions as places within the city, or suburbs or what have you. Like there is a harbor and one of the pieces of land will probably be Freedom Point.

And while Portliberty.com is taken, portlibertynj.com is not. And I checked in the Census Bureau gazetteer and could not find a real place name of Port Liberty, in New Jersey or elsewhere. How much would it be to register portlibertynj.com and get some FTP space?

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer

 

[Fyrestryke]

There isn't a Port Liberty that I can see either. According to google.com, there is a CAPE LIBERTY CRUISE PORT, NJ that is commonly referred to as simply "Port Liberty", but that doesn't keep us from using it. Aha! They spell it different... http://www.portlibertenj.com/

Domain name - $9 per year. Hosting. Well, that's a whole nuther can of worms. I highly recommend www.dreamhost.com for hosting. For $7.95 a month, you get the hosting with 20GB of space, tons of traffic, the works and FREE domain registration. Check it out.

EDIT - I really, really like Port Liberty...