Worst fantasy names in our Real World

[jonesy]

What does "ruh-GEE-nah" rhyme with?

It's Canada. You say it "ridge-eye-na".

 

[Seonaid]

It's Canada. You say it "ridge-eye-na".

I was kidding.

 

[jonesy]

I was kidding.

I know. But "ridge-eye-na" doesn't rhyme with what I think he meant either.

 

[Seonaid]

I know. But "ridge-eye-na" doesn't rhyme with what I think he meant either.

It does to me??

 

[jonesy]

It does to me??

How do you pronounce 'vag' as 'vidge'?


Edit: huh, this sure is weird sideroad to find yourself in.

 

[Seonaid]

How do you pronounce 'vag' as 'vidge'?


Edit: huh, this sure is weird sideroad to find yourself in.

I pronounce it more "vuh," and I guess I'm looking at the last 2 syllables more than all three.

This is weird!

 

[jonesy]

This is weird!

Any minute now a canadian is going to come over and say we're both wrong.

 

[Huw]

Passed another today: Witchampton. Just down the road from me and I never knew it was there.

And how could I have forgotten the UK's top undead areas, Lichfield and the Isle of Wight?

 

[Daosus]

Off of the top of my head:

Novaya Zemlya (new earth/land)
Severnaya Zemlya (north earth/land)
Austria (German: Oesterreich, eastern kingdom)
Grozniy(in Chechnya, translates as "fearsome/terrible")
The Nether Lands
Newfoundland, Canada
Prince Edward Island, Canada
Great Smoky Mountains
Loveland, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado ("you named the place after a rock?")
Rockville, North Carolina


Also, Sarajevo means "the field around the palace" in Turkish, from which it derives. In Russian, that happens to mean "place of barns."

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

While names in our own language ("Rocky Mountains", "White House") might sound silly to us, that's kind of a peculiarity of Anglo/American cultures... where most of our names came from other languages, and thus hold little inherent meaning. irl, my real first name is derived from "victorious city" in Ancient Greek; my last name is derived from "son of the ruler of the world" in Gaelic. Now, it sounds silly to us if I go around calling myself "Victorious City, Son of Ruler of the World" in English... but my Chinese friends do the equivalent of that every day. My Chinese name literally means "Wheat, Flying Dragon"- my friends include "Ocean Sunrise of Family li", "King Seabird", and "Official Protector"... yet they don't think in terms of literal meanings either.

Etymology is a fascinating thing...

Just think, for instance, how silly World War II looks (as a poster on John C. Wright's blog recently pointed out). The Russian strongman's name was "Man of Steel"? The French General's name was "The Gaul"? The superintelligent codebreaking computer was called Colossus, and it broke a code called "Enigma"??? Gimme a break... who names this stuff, George Lucas? (Or should we call him Farmer from Lucania?)