Good points, yet I've decided I'm not including licensed properties which aren't still owned by WotC. (Well, except for Dragon Fist.)
So I'm not including cultural parallels from Kingdoms of Kalamar, World of Warcraft, Diablo II, Rick & Morty, or Stranger Things either, even though they all featured officially licensed D&D products.
I had the impression that Amn/Tethyr in FR was a closer analogue to the reconquiesta-era continental (European) Spain rather than (American) New-Spain. I might be wrong though…
I'm eternally greatful that Eberron is never mentioned in your list. While it borrows from real world cultures, each one is unique enough to not be an analogue of a real world culture.
True. And if you (as I did) search for various aficionado-authored lists of cultural correlations, they're all different!
However, I suspect there are still some singular motifs (e.g. names and words) which can clearly be attributed to an earthly culture.
I think you missed Mulhorand in Toril, for Egyptian.
There’s also a Babylonian nation near there too, but I have forgotten the name - Unther?.
<Edit> Speaking of Egyptian, there’s one from Ravenloft as well (Ha-Akir?), and two arabic from Greyhawk (Sultanate of Zeif & Caliphate of Ekbir) and Ket (Egyptian?).
For this presentation, I'm not counting ~European cultures (~Celtic, ~Finnish, ~Greek, ~Norse, ~Slavic, etc.), or ~Anglo-American cultures (e.g. New Waterdeep). Nor does the chart include the archetypally "ancient" civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. I could include those if people would prefer that I did.
True. And if you (as I did) search for various aficionado-authored lists of cultural correlations, they're all different!
However, I suspect there are still some singular motifs (e.g. names and words) which can clearly be attributed to an earthly culture.
~Central Asian (~Mongolian, ~Central Asian Turkic, and ~Scythian):
In Oerth: Tiger Nomads and Wolf Nomads
In Mystara:
The Ethengar Khanates (~Mongolian). Though the Uighur tribe of Ethengarians is from the real-world Uyghur Turkic people. Note: "Some of the more powerful shamans of Ethengar are capable of entering the Ethereal plane and reaching other worlds. Most often, shamans are attuned to places like the Plain of Horses in the Forgotten Realms region of Kara-Tur, or the Tiger Nomads in Greyhawk. Visitors accompanying or sent by a shaman usually seem to phase out of an animal when entering the other world." --GAZ12, p.32
The Yellow Orcs [sic!] of Yellow Orkia and the Hobgoblins of Hobgobliny in the Broken Lands (both ~Mongolian)
The Yazak goblinoids [sic] of the Yazak Steppes (~Kazakh)
Jennites (~Scythians) of the Skothar continent and in the Hollow World
In Toril:
The Hordelands of the Plain of Horses (~Mongolians)
Murghôm (said by Rich Baker to be partly evocative of the Cossacks/Turanians of the Conan stories)
The Ama Basin peoples (are parallel to the real-world Tarim Basin peoples, such as the Uighurs)
In Krynn:
The Khanate of Khur in Ansalon
On the continent of Taladas: the Uigan, Purgi, Pureshk, Kazar, and Alan-Atu (~Buryat) tribes, and the Tamire Elves
~Chinese:
In Oerth: Celestial Imperium/Shaofeng/Sufang
In Mystara:
The Kingdom of Ochalea
A couple of the names of the Yellow Orcs [sic!] are Chinese (see here).
The Ethengarians (~Mongols) use Chinese names for their calendar.
In Toril: Shou Lung and T'u Lung
In Ravenloft: I'Cath
Tianguo from WotC's 2e-era Dragon Fist RPG. Rights reportedly sold to Chris Pramas though.
In the Concord Worlds of the Radiant Citadel: "Buried Dynasty" by Felice Tzehuei Kuan (Taiwanese American). (author interview)
Also:
The kirin (qilin) and lung (Chinese dragons).
In AD&D 1e, the Gold Dragon's scientific name is "Draco Orientalus Sino Dux", meaning "Eastern Chinese Duke Dragon"!
The 3e/4e/5e Draconic script is based on the aesthetics of Chinese writing.
~Indigenous Siberian:
In Toril: the Northern Wastes
~Middle Eastern / Southwest Asian and North African (~Arab, ~Ottoman/Turkish, ~Iranian/Persian, ~Afghan)
In Oerth: the Bakluni peoples
In Blackmoor: The Afridhi of the Goblin Kush. (~Afghan). "Afridi" is a real Afghan tribe who live in the Hindu Kush mountains.)
In Mystara:
The Emirates of Ylaruam (mostly ~Arab, but explicitly overlays ~Ancient Egyptian (Nithian pyramids), ~Persian (Ctesiphon), ~Mesopotamian (Uruk, Kirkuk), Uzbek Turkic (Uzbek "Samarkand" mentioned in X1 paragraph), and ~Buryat Mongolian (Ust-Urt) elements and placenames)
The Desert Nomads of the Great Waste (~Afghan)
The Hagiarchy of Great Huyule (~Ottoman Turkish, but the illustration of the Master appears to be evocative of the Ayatollah of Iran [sic!]), and Huyule's colony of Bogdashkan on the Jungle Coast
The gnolls of Gnollistan [sic!], lead by Nizam Pasha (Nazim Pasha was Chief of Staff of the army of the Ottoman Empire, and “pasha” is an Ottoman title)
The culture of The Manor and of the ancient city of Tuma in B8: Journey to the Rock (e.g the name "Hakeem" and the arabesque architecture in the illustration of the Ghostly Warriors of Tuma).
The Altan Tepe Mountains and the city of Selenica are from the Turkish language: Altın Tepe "golden hill" and Selânik (Ottoman Turkish name for the now Greek city of Thessalonika).
In the Kingdom of Ghyr (the unplaced homeland of the LJN Action figures):
The Sarken [sic!] Mercenaries (AD&D PVC figures)
2 NPCs from AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn: Laila the Dark (Laila is an Arabic name) and Peregine the Hawk (note his arabesque armor).
Zarak the Half-Orc Assassin -- an LJN AD&D Action Figure -- is likely named after the 1957 film "Zarak" about Zarak Khan, an Afghan resistance fighter. [sic!]
In Toril (three~Arab analogues):
Zakhara (and the entire Al-Qadim product line)
Calimshan
The Bedine of the Anauroch Desert
In Ravenloft: Phazaria in the Amber Wastes
The Land of Arir in the stand-alone AD&D 1e adventure I9: Day of Al-Akbar
The Desert of Desolation, stand-alone 1e adventure trilogy, later placed in Faerun's Plains of Purple Dust; Also, GAZ2 suggested placement in Mystara's Emirate of Ylaruam
In Aebrynis (Birthright setting): the Khinasi
In D&D Earth: The Crusades [sic! uncomfortably named] Campaign Sourcebook Historical Reference Guide. Set in the Outremer.
In the Concord Worlds of the Radiant Citadel: "Shadow of the Sun" (~Iran/Persia) by Justice Ramin Arman. Includes aspects of the Shahnameh epic (Zoroastrian to Islamic era) and the Safavid Empire (Islamic Persia). (author interview)
Also: genies (efreet, djinni, marid), ghoul (ghul), mummy (mūmiya) originate in Arab folklore or the Arabic language.
~Southeast Asian:
In Mystara:
The Indonesian-inspired Siswa Elves in Tracy Hickman's B7: Rahasia module. "Siswa" means "Student" in Indonesian (and they are called "Elven students"), and other Indonesian names: "Rahasia" (='secret, confidential') and "the Rahib" (='monk').
The characters in the unplaced 3D Dragon-Tile adventures (AC3 & AC8) have Indonesian names. (I suggest these take place on the isle of Zyxl, since that's the "Pangaean" equivalent of Java.)
The Village of Panitube in the Isle of Dread (~Ayta Sambal language of the Philippines, source of the name of real-world Mt. Pinatubo).
One-Eyed Jitra, the Bandit King from the original (banned) orange-cover B3: Palace of the Silver Princess, is explicitly said to be named after the Malaysian city Jitra. Presumably, there's a ~Malaysian culture on the Adri Varma Plateau northwest of Glantri.
~Southeast Asian cultures on the the invisible moon of Patera: Selimpore (~Singapore), Malaycalog (~Philippines), Kompor-Thap (~Cambodia), Surabayang (~Malay);
In Toril: Malatra (the Living Jungle), the Island Kingdoms, and other lands in the south of Kara-Tur.
In Krynn: The Magius language of magic is partly based on the Indonesian language. (Tracy Hickman also used Indonesian names in his B7: Rahasia module.)
In the Concord Worlds (of the Radiant Citadel):
Siabsungkoh region (~Thailand) in "Salted Legacy" by Surena Marie (author interview)
Dayawlongon setting (~Phillipines) in "Between Tangled Roots" by Pam Punzalan (author interview)
You can add to these columns the five major clans of the Tarkir setting in Magic the Gathering (since Fizban's Treasury of Dragons namedrops Tarkir, and other MtG settings like Kaladesh and Ixalan are included in the list):
The Abzan Houses are based on Ottoman Turks (so Middle Eastern category?).
As you may know, a Latter-day Saints publication, reportedly titled Christ in the Americas, mentioned Bernardino de Sahagún, since he wrote about Aztec conceptions of God. Steve Marsh (creator of the sahuagin) was a LDS missionary at the time.
So the word "sahuagin" at least is inspired by the Spanish name Sahagún. The man Bernardino de Sahagún is named after his home town of Sahagún, Spain.
Also, there is a peripheral Aztec aspect, in that Bernardino de Sahagún resided in New Spain and was the first person to write extensively about the Aztec culture.
Steve Marsh created the sahuagin and the ixitxachitl (devilfish) at the same time, for the OD&D Blackmoor booklet. Steve does mention a Lovecraftian inspiration for the ixitxachitl, but I haven't seen that that applies also to the sahuagin.
I've discovered just now that the Latter-day Saints also refer to the native Aztec historian Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl (who wrote the Codex Ixtlilxochitl) as a source for interpreting the Book of Mormon.
"Some Mormon apologists have argued for substantial parallels between the Jaredites [a legendary Mormon tribe] and the Olmecs. For example, one scholar asserted that writings an ancient Native American historian, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, wrote about a group of people who came from the great tower to Mesoamerica. Ixtlilxochitl wrote that the people lived in an area in the northern parts of the land, along the Gulf Coast of Mexico."
It's likely that Steve got both names from that (or some other) LDS publication.
So, as far as I can tell, both the sahuagin and the ixitxachitl are monsters which were invented by an Anglo-American Mormon, using the names of two real-world historians of New Spain/Mexico who appeared in Mormon missionary publications, both of whom had a connection with Aztec culture. One of the names is modified Spanish, the other is modified Nahuatl (Aztec).
I'm not sure how this fits with my chart! I think sahuagin will go under Spanish America. And ixitxachitl will stay with Mesoamerica. As creatures, they aren't based on folklore from those cultures, but their D&D designer drew the names (wordshapes) from those contexts.
***
Edit: After I posted that, I found this quote from Steve Marsh:
This is one of the races I did that ended up in Blackmoor. The name is a Spanish name of an historian that came off the back of the Christ in the Americas pamphlet used by the LDS Church. Like the Ixit, there are two "official" pronunciations. First, pronounce it like you would in Spanish class. Second, Sa ha gwin (which is not intuitive).
An old Justice League of America animated show and my own imagination provided the concept, with a heavy touch of sea Aztecs and the question what would evolved sharks as a social species be like.
MM has so much detail because Blackmoor had so much detail. Not a Lovecraft influenced creature (I've done a lot of those, mind you, just not this one). Steve Marsh, 2005
So Steve confirms that the name is Spanish, and that there's "a heavy touch of sea Aztecs." So I'll list sahuagin under both "Spanish America" and "Aztec."
