D&D General What's in a place name? Apparently, water.

[Baldurs_Underdark]

80% of humanity lives by the sea or a days walk or at worse a days worth of horse ride from the sea.

That's a slippery slope to the ocean you got there.

 

[David Howery]

The town I grew up in was named after a railroad guy who unashamedly put his name on two other towns, IIRC. And of course, Alexander the Great named several places after himself. I suppose you could do this in a D&D world, have several villages in different kingdoms named after some famous conqueror....

 

[R_J_K75]

The town I grew up in was named after a railroad guy who unashamedly put his name on two other towns, IIRC. And of course, Alexander the Great named several places after himself. I suppose you could do this in a D&D world, have several villages in different kingdoms named after some famous conqueror....

Thats awesome, the power of ego.

I dont know why but this reminds me of a rogue from 1800s American Old West who went from town to town selling telegraph lines. Put up the poles, then moved along to blik the next town witjout ever running the lines. Townsfolk never noticed until it was too late.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

The town I grew up in was named after a railroad guy who unashamedly put his name on two other towns, IIRC. And of course, Alexander the Great named several places after himself. I suppose you could do this in a D&D world, have several villages in different kingdoms named after some famous conqueror....

Several places? Alexander named over 70 places after himself according to google. That dude had ego in spades.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I live not too far from a place in Texas called White Settlement. Given the history of the state, that could raise some eyebrows. But it was founded by members of the White family.

 

[Tonguez]

Monga is the old harbour district in Taipei meaning Canoe/Boat in some native dialects.
The crazy thing is the name Haa Monga is found in Tonga and its cognate Ava Mo’a refers to the sacred pass in the Raiatea reef (Tahiti).

 

[Tonguez]

In UK we have five different rivers all called River Ouse.
The likely reason is that the Roman invaders attempted to communicate with local Celts as to the name of the nearby “ moving channel of water” and were told “Ouse”, thereby naming it Fluvium Ouse.
Ouse is actually the Celtic word for river.
Thus in UK, we have five River Rivers......

I always liked Pendle Hill essentially meaning Hill-hill Hill
pen being Cumbric for Hill and hyll being old english

 

[gamerprinter]

Then you have situations like "Ottawa, IL" where I live, you'd think had something to do with the Ottawa native tribe from Canada, no, rather the original name was Adawe (ah-dah-way) which is Algonquin for "trading place". I'm fairly certain the many Ottawa names across the US was originally just a trading post, hence should be Adawe (the Algonquin language group region is most of midwest to eastern N. America). Lots of native tribe names is their word for "Man", "Superior Man", or "First Man", almost all of them are just that, in different languages and dialects.

 

[GuyBoy]

The town I grew up in was named after a railroad guy who unashamedly put his name on two other towns, IIRC. And of course, Alexander the Great named several places after himself. I suppose you could do this in a D&D world, have several villages in different kingdoms named after some famous conqueror....

I guess George Washington gets a free pass on the ego front because he kinda deserved both the city and the state getting his name.
Somewhat strangely ( especially to US eyes) the school my daughter is principal at is called Cornwallis School, due to its proximity to Linton House, ancestral home of a certain general who had a tough day at Yorktown.

But back to towns named for presidents....in the 1960s UK TV had a kids programme named, yes, Trumpton, set in a fictional small town of people with wooden heads. Coincidence or freakish time travelling prescience?
Make your own minds up. Below is a photo of one of the characters, Windy Miller

 

[Eltab]

The town I grew up in was named after a railroad guy who unashamedly put his name on two other towns, IIRC.

Mr. Garrett of the B&O (Baltimore and Ohio) Railroad?
If not, there were a few other strong-willed high-ego people running railroads in the late 1800s, to choose from.