How do YOU name your cities?

[Jay Ess 15]

Usually, for small towns I use first names like Melvindale or Dannygrove.

For suburban places I use names that go after their geograpgy or surroundings, for example Riverside

For small cities I use whatever comes to mind, for example Sherton or Lashedera

For large cities I try to use something that would be characteristic to a city it's size. For Example, Marris

Feel free to use my examples BTW

[Brady Baker 1]

Mine can be interesting. I take certain city names and change the spelling slightly. Or I take lyrics from songs, such as "Orulum" and "Sana" from a Turkish song. Or historical names for places like Austrasia or Myceinah (not correct spelling I know but you get the idea)

Mayor names are interesting. Each city has a unique mayoral name such as Aleksandir Bradonus or Ilyra Doonesk. The largest cities have somewhat important sounding names such as Illuminous, Harbour, Da

[830point35 8]

My personal favorite was the region named after the lands in Disneyland mayored by the folks of the Bush administration.

[cityhawk 12]

My names are just random. Sometimes, I'll use the names of towns around me. Other times I'll combine the first words that pop in my head. I've also used cities from the Bible, like Galatia and Corinth. The naming depends on the moment I guess.

[DocRorlach 25]

My approach mostly involves what I read over he years: so Empire tonws and mayors were based on Evelyn Waugh novels, while Flatlands ames came from a nearby real region but the mayors are all from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

[Gn_leugim 853]

nowadays I use a very odd way to name them.. I open my birds book randomly and pick one of the names I find.. in Portuguese or in latin.. and this way I got good names I think.. like Trigeir

[el_cozu 5]

I use a concept... for example... Metallica songs... I name my cities "master of puppets", "blackened", "Sandman", etc etc etc...

or... what ever is near me... for example "coke can", or "USB cable" or whatever's on TV at the moment... for example a comercial "burger king" or what ever...

[un1 41]

Whatever is in my mind... or the first city I look at in a map.

[Martin892 4]

mostly short, (latin) american oriented names. Morris, Quigley, Saxum, Trenton. Also cities beginning with "San ..." or ending with "... valley". I use google earth to search for small villages and name my capitals like them.

[FreewayofFlight 41]

I use whatever comes to mind. Most of the time I'll name my most important city/capital after myself (Petersburgh) and just think of things randomly. I may sometimes name a city after co-workers (Serio Harbor), cars (Bonneville), surrounding landscapes (Riverside), and anything that sounds good. I was watching a movie and the word 'Egoli' came around, which is Swahili for City of Gold (I think, I don't remember). I came up with Roque City after thinking of the KISS song 'Detroit Rock City'. There's a myrid of ideas you can use, like have a town named Pierce and a neighbor across the river named Brosnan. Merge them together and you have Pierce-Brosnan!

[jigsaw 227]

- friends surnames

- streets and roads around the neighbourhood

-places you have been or have lived. holiday destinations

-sometimes after watching a movie i might name a town after them (i have a city called tarantino!)

- 1 city gets a name of a place from a previous region... for continuity

look at how old towns in england were named. most of eastern US names come from europe, and their names have a common connection... ie- ham (nottingham for example) means village, ie ham-let.

[snickm 2]

I'll take a state and name my cities after the really small towns in that state.

[Wheezy 23]

Usually, people.

I've tried almost all of the techniques above.

All of the districts, neighborhoods and suburbs in the CJ I'm working on are named after people I know, with a generic place name suffix (park, yards, bay, heights, etc.) attached.

such as:

Lunsford City (girlfirend)

Morrison Heights (aunt)

Higginsburg (high school friend)

Most of the streets, important buildings, etc. are named after (usually obscure) artists, musicians or writers.

e.g. - Van Vliet Street, Coltrane Way, Pei Center, The Vonnegut Institute

Companies are usually named after Simtropolis members or are nods to other CJs.

e.g. - Cockatoo Communications, The Marrast Foundation, Montfort Construction

This is the best method of naming things I've found so far.

[nofunk 1,933]

When I was a kid, I drew all of these maps for a country I had made up; I still use city names from that fictional country!

[Brady Baker 1]

Nofunk, I do that too. All the names of the major cities I have above are the names of capitals from a book I have been working on for many years. Illuminous differs from the book since it was destroyed in it, much like Atlantis. Currently, the region is the Kingdom of Bradonia, named after myself

[feliwi 4]

I usally mix different parts of exiting cities, like in my CJ I mixed Krung Thep and Bangkok (which is the same city, but two names) to Bang Thep. Let Google Earth be your friend to create realistic city names!

[paroxysm 2]

For the most part, I take out my gigantic United States Atlas, open to a random state, and point my finger at the map. Where my finger is pointing, or the surrounding area, is my city name.

[R30hedron 28]

I'm planning on creating a region where all the cities are named after trees. Some Examples...

Oakington

Fort Pine

Redwood City

Palmetto

Applevilla

Fieldspruce

I might not have these exact names, but this would be about what I would do when naming them

[absolute1 1]

I sort of have a process that goes a little like this:

1.I always think of the language my region will have then find the place that most closely resembles its culture browse

for names of small towns in that area on google earth steel some of the names as long as they have little significance

also use common names of cities from that culture for suburbs good example is for a Spanish culture use Santiago

that name is everywhere in Latin America

2.know the language sorta and use this knowledge to add descriptors to those names which you already have or invent

ones that sorta use these ideas

3.Corrupt the names of existing words. the world over corrupted words have become the name of many regions places

and peoples like the word Cajun which is a corruption of Acadian

4. Make up stuff that sound like it fits the culture and language and just attribute it to native languages or prior names

[ForeverShafer 0]

I usually make up some names, post them to a dart board, and fire away! No, seriously.

[SC4Poser-moser 0]

random name generator

[Follarch 326]

I just go with total fictional names, I choose a good letter, then build it from there, adding letters to make a believable name to it. Take this for Example.

Licanstha.

Started with "L", then added i, c, a and so on. But I also don't want it to be the same as others I've made. For example, the Name Licanstha is totally different then another of mine, Tuscalaini. I also name my cities after important people in my life, ie: my girlfriend (Kristina City, KristPointe) and my future children (Tristania, Cheltali).

[BrenMan 94 1]

I think of the basic role that the city will play in my region, form the English words for it, and then translate it all into Latin (on my own).  So, for example, "River City" would be "Fluctus Urbsi", and so on.

[Randomtaskk 1]

01, 02, 03, 04..

Its easy when you have no imagination and OCD XD

[DeadCanDance 0]

I'm from an Spanish-spoken country, and in spanish, most of family names come from spanish villages, as Carmona or Arredondo. I use them.

Other thing is to translate some words to another language, for example, swedish, and name the city after one of their characters, as K