I'm all for anything lifted out of a random passage in Beowulf. F'rex, Corlon recently asked me to draft a cartograph for an upcoming game of his, and name things whatever I like. Excellent. So I whip out my Heaney (that is NOT a euphamism, damn it) and turn to a random page, and we end up with the great rivers Scyldinga and Forgylan, and assorted towns by the names of Waerdodon, Aethelinga, Eoseld, Gaeta, and Baernan.
Heh. Old english rocks.
I also like drawing names from Hebrew, German, and Latin--although I actually use those for meaningful names, instead of pulling random words from original texts.
When I create a setting, I like to give things logical names, and create distinct language groups. f'rex, in the map I made from Corlon, you're got your old english names, you've got your Germanic names, and then you're got your completely made up names that Peter liked the sound of. The Germanic stuff is mostly dwarvish, and pertains to the moutains and the locales surrounding said mountains. The Old English stuff is mostly in the western population centers, so most likely stems from the roots of the Common Tongue. The Fantasy names I peg as draconic, as these are reserved for places of great import and historical impact, and Corlon has said that he would like Draconic to be the setting's scholarly tongue.
Factoid of the Day: Meduseld, the Golden Hall of Theoden in LotR, is also the name of the home of Beowulf.
'N stuff.
--Jeff
