Renaming Real-World Nations...

[LoneWolf23]

Ok, building my campaign setting, but I have a problem. See, I'm designing my world's nations by basing them on real-world nations like the British Isles, France, Italy, Germany, etc. But I draw a blank when it comes to giving them original, but not silly names...

Can anyone help me? I've already got my British Isles equivalent named: Arbion for England, Eriu for Ireland, Caledonia for Scotland, and I'm thinking of making an elven-dominated region to fill in for Wales.. Still, I draw a blank for the rest of "Europe".

And thus, I turn to you fine, imaginative folk... How would you (intelligently) rename:

-Spain

-France

-Italy

-Germany

-Scandinavia

-Balkan regions

-Greece

-Russia

That's about it for now.. I leave things in your hands...

 

[FireLance]

If you want the names to suggest the countries, here's what you can do:

1. Get an atlas of the world.
2. Go to the individual country listings and pick the name of a town or region that isn't very well known (or at least, that you've never heard of before).
3. Use that name for the country.

 

[fba827]

How about take the primary (real world) language from each of those regions and then find out what their word for "land" "nation" "country" "king" is and start with that .... ?

(just a random thought, it may or may not work depending on what the linguist translations end up being)

 

[Laman Stahros]

You can use babelfish.altavista.com as a source of translation.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

As I have a homebrew campaign world that is very much like this (the links in the .sig) here is what I came up with for names. If you want to know the rest of Europe, go to the page and take a look at the players guide, it's for 3.0 right now, but I'm in the process of rewriting a guide for 3.5. Anyhow, on with the names.

Spain: Of course, it's broken up into 5 kingdoms, but the whole area is known as Iberia.

France: Galia, again it's made up of a number of kingdoms.

Italy: Italia

Germany: The Empire, of course it covers a great deal more than just Germany, but it's basically the remnants of the Holy Roman Empire.

Scandinavia: Norge, Sverge, Finmark, Isaland, Danemark

Balkan regions: Magyaria (Hungary), Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, Eastern Empire (Byzantine Empire)

Greece: Achea

Russia: Principalities of Rus

Some aren't terribly original, but the campaign world is actually pretty tightly tied to Earth, so I didn't want to venture too far from reality.

 

[DMScott]

Ok, building my campaign setting, but I have a problem. See, I'm designing my world's nations by basing them on real-world nations like the British Isles, France, Italy, Germany, etc. But I draw a blank when it comes to giving them original, but not silly names...

Can anyone help me? I've already got my British Isles equivalent named: Arbion for England, Eriu for Ireland, Caledonia for Scotland, and I'm thinking of making an elven-dominated region to fill in for Wales.. Still, I draw a blank for the rest of "Europe".

Dangerous Journeys, a short-lived RPG by Gary Gygax, was set on a fairly close analog to earth. It had alternate names for all sorts of real-world nations and/or regions; if you poke around on the web you might find a list.

Otherwise, some stabs of my own:

-Spain

Perhaps "Iberia".

-France

Going the pseudo-Roman route as you've done for the British isles, some variant of "Gaul" might work.

-Italy

Would depend on the era, I think. You could name it after the dominant city (a la Rome) if you have one, or if you're in one of the medieval periods when Italy was comprised of warring city-states something like "Machia" (to suggest "Maciavelli") might work.

-Germany

Again, the era is important. For a lot of the ancient era, it'd be split into tribal territories. Otherwise, something like "Hapsburg" or "the Hanseatic League" might do, depending on government type.

-Scandinavia

If you want to refer to this as a whole, something like "Scandia" would work. Maybe steal the Greyhawk equivalents for the actual nations/tribes - the Fruztii, and... darn, drawing a blank on the other two barbarian nations.

-Balkan regions

Heh. On your own here, but just picking some city names could work well.

-Greece

I always call my ancient Greece-type civilization "Thrace". I've had it in about three or four different settings, I think.

-Russia

Rus, perhaps?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Try Illyria for the Balkans, and Hellica for Greece.

 

[Agback]

-Spain

Hispania.

Catalonia/Castile/Léon/Navarre/Aragón/Portugal

Crato

-France

Gaul
Gallia

-Italy

Italia

-Germany

Deutschland
Allemagne
der Reich

-Scandinavia

Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Finland

-Balkan regions

Illyria

Pannonia/Moesia/Dacia/Thracia/Macedonia

-Greece

Hellas
Achaia

-Russia

Scythia

 

[Express]

Might I suggest pilfering from fictional names of countries from literature and movies?

For instance Ruritania, Osterland, Sylvania, Freiland, Razkavia, Grand Fenwick, San Seriffe, Borduria, and of course Fredonia

 

[Agback]

Balkan regions: Either part of the Polish/Lithuanian Empire, the Volk Knights or Principalities of Rus

I think that perhaps you are confusing the Baltic States with the Balkans.

Regards,


Agback