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It sounds plausible to me. Grounds it to something we are familiar with. We didn't do any research when naming places, things, gods, etc. They literally just rolled off the tongue.

-gaard is the old spelling for Danish (and I assume Swedish and Norwegian) -gård. It comes from Old Norse garðr. Staven looks related to the Swedish for "staff". On second thought, it all looks kinda Dutch.

lol Larry...guess I over-think things sometimes.

Clarence....agree on Danish. I was thinking of using the basic Scandinavian place name and save Saxon for if I want to do something in Reinaris. A series of forts with -borg names (Brunborg, Milaborg). Smaller towns and villages would be a lot of -by and maybe throw in a few -thorp

Bryan,
Bill and I could teach lessons about over-thinking. :-)

I love the idea of regions having like names. At a glance you can see division of geographical areas. Great idea!

You can also see where a lost or displaced people once were. In a region full of names like Scarborough, Markham, Newcastle, and York, you’d imagine something definitively English. But once you see Toronto, Etobicoke and Mississauga interspersed, you know there is another history to the area.

Placenames are very evocative and meaningful. Stavengaard and Stafton have totally different vibes.

Nothing wrong with that! Cool ideas! The nice thing about a setting like KK is you can throw in details like that if you want, and ascribe whatever background you want, and it probably won't tread on too many toes.

I'm actually working on a drop-in hamlet for KK, and I'll remember your thoughts here when coming up with a good name.

Pretty much all the lands north of Germany have their origins in the Goths. Celts, Saxons, Swedes, Visigoths, all have their origins in the Goths, so share many language similarities even if, phonetically, they sound different.

Interesting fact: Goth forebears were formed primarily from Macedonian and Hebrew language groups and DNA, which is why they share a similar pantheon to the Greeks and carried on human sacrifices (for a time).

The fact is, the map covers a large area, and you would likely have language variances from one end to another. So I think it appropriate, and within reason, to use any of the Gothic offshoot languages to make the place names. Besides, there could have been an invading language group at any time from another part of the world.

Not to go off topic but you might want to check your linguistics, Ascent.

Saxon, Swedish, Visigothic, and Gothic all have their origins in Proto-Germanic: Gothic is in the eastern branch of Germanic, Saxon is Western, Swedish is Northern.

Celtic languages are not Germanic. The Germanic and Celtic languages are (along with lots of others) members of the Indo-European language family.

The Macedonian (either Greek or Slavic) languages are also Indo-European but not Germanic, and Hebrew has absolutely nothing to do with any of them.

I started to pull out my history notes from college where we went over this, then I read Clarence's post, then I decided....

I am ssssooooo not touching this topic.

Germany is a part of the indo-european expansion. The indo-european expansion includes both Macedonia and the Hebrew/Chaldean regions.

The Macedonian/Hebrew relationship is way far back and is also part of the indo-european expansion. Celtic is an off-shoot of the early Nordic branch. They even share the same writing. They are very much an offshoot of the Germanic roots. The Celtic connection to Norway is well established and there is little variance between their customs, art, architecture, musical instruments, tools and clothing. Just because they share little similarity today to German doesn't mean they're not related. Celtic shares little relationship to the southern European family (Latin) at all, except as what loan-words came through the Germanic line.

These languages did not develop independently from each other. They all came from a singular language source. The Germanic line of languages came northward through Macedonia, just as their pantheon did. Of course, they weren't Germanic back then. The language developed, not sprung fully-formed.

We could get into a big old discussion, but it's only going to hijack the thread further. Look up indo-european and proto-indo-european to see maps and discussions of the progression of language, religion and culture westward.

@ Ascent: I'm a historical linguist, this has been my professional focus of research for decades. One of my specializations is Indo-European. I live and breathe this stuff every day. Your analysis is quite wrong. I have absolutely no idea where you found your information, it certainly isn't in main-stream linguistics literature.

Then I suggest you brush up.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/general/IE.html

To sum up the statements on that site, it states that the Celtic branch of PIE split into two, a Latin branch and a continental branch. The continental branch dissipated. The Latin branch split further into the northern and southern branches. (Late Latin, the form everyone has come to know, is the southern branch, technically known as Italic.) The Germanic languages split from the northern branch. The Irish and Brythiac branches also split. The Runic branch, which includes the Irish Celtic branch includes Ireland and Norway. Runic Northwest Germanic formed later as the Germanic and Celtic merged.

The Macedonian/Hebrew group to which I referred is technically called the Anatolian language group. Germanic did split from the Hellenic (Early Macedonian,) which was branched from the Italo-Celtic-Tocharian (a branch of Anatolian) by means of the Balto-Slavic (Though I believe the southern Latin branch followed the Phoenecian line, while the northern tended toward a more Chaldea bent. Such is in dispute by many, not just us.)

Thus, we are both right about the relationships, except I may have been mistaken about the direction of the Runic development. (However, I did found information here that provides a dispute about the origins of the runic alphabet in agreement with my initial claim.) It is Ireland to Norway, not Norway to Ireland. (While you denied any relationship at all.) But your claim showed a fundamental lack of understanding of the earliest development, and mine showed a directional misunderstanding of the middle development. (We both failed to recognize that even the southern Latin has origins in the Hebrew/Chaldean [Anatolian; aka, Hittite] groups. However, you failed to see its influence even within the Germanic group.) You and I both seemed to think of the southern branch as "Latin" and the northern branch as strictly "Germanic", when they are both considered Latin, but south and north, though I correctly identified the Irish/Brythiac Celtic coming through the north, (not the Italic line, as you claimed) just not the Germanic line.

Even still, the fact is, historical language is not an exact science and there are many differing views. For either of us to claim ours is definitive would be a disrespect to the field in general. And degrees be damned, I've been studying language history since I was seven years old. But neither of us appear to have a truly scholarly understanding.

But one thing is certain, a small area (consider central Europe) can have a large variety of languages. That said, I would suggest that KK have the Balto-Slavic variety.

By the way, "Hebrew" refers to the descendants of "Eber", not just the Jews. Thus, it includes the Hittites. Sorry for the confusion. I forget that people think of modern Hebrew (a bastardization of various Hittite branches) as the only Hebrew.

I never claimed that Macedonian was Germanic, but claimed the inverse, which is primarily true, though my nomenclature was unrefined. Macedonia covers a small area of the same region from which the Balto-Slavic and then Germanic branched.

Bryan, in answer to your quarry, you might consider this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages

You should also consider this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet

I am not a linguist, I'd just like to understand the meat of the discussion, so let's please keep this polite. Ascent, I think the issue is partly with your initial assertion that those languages descended from Hebrew, which none of your resources seem to indicate. I read over them, and they don't seem to indicate any further relationship other than they all started from the same source. I don't see how that makes them descended one from another any further than a biologists assertion that we probably descended from apes because we look similar. Can you please point out to me the specific area or passage that supports your hypothesis?

Thanks!

Unfortunately the website that you linked to does not corroborate any of your claims. Neither am I sure how you arrived at those claims except that you read the list of branches towards the top of the page as hierarchical - which it isn't. I'm not going to respond in detail to your whole message because this is neither the time nor place.

Here is a pretty standard chart of the languages
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~gawron/fundamentals/course_core/lectures/hist...

I really don't understand your conclusions, they are very unusual to say the least.

That chart seems to say that Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Italic, Hellenic, Thracian, Albanian, Illyrian, Phrygian, Armenian, Anatolian, Indo-Iranian and Tocharian are all entirely unrelated except by means of the Proto-Indo-European association, which not only completely contradicts all the other sources I've read and even the site I provided, but contradicts simple observation. It completely ignores several of the intervening branches that establish certain relationships between some of the above languages, as well as ignoring certain derivative relationships. The site I showed does claim the derivations I claimed. All one needs to do is follow the bread crumbs on that site. I was typing the information as I read it on the site to make sure I had it right.

I did not take the list as hierarchical. I ignored the list and read the specific information on the development of the languages.

Clarence misrepresented a couple of my claims. That site DOES support what I said (albeit with corrected broader terms) and I did not claim that Macedonian was Germanic.

However, it seems I misunderstood one of his claims. I read simply "Germanic" where he in fact wrote "Germanic and Celtic". So that sent me on a tear that I shouldn't have been on, though my statements were factual according to the site I provided for support.

Neolithicwolf, I explained what I meant by Hebrew, though, granted, incorrect usage. Anatolian is the correct reference. Also, Clarence was trying to establish that there is no connection with either the language spoken by early Macedonians or Hebrews, which contradicts the site I posted. Granted, Macedonian (ancient) and Hebrew (correctly, paleo-Hebrew) developed later, but I was referring to the language regions (correctly Hellenistic and Anatolian) as the sources, not those specific micro-languages, because my nomenclature was limited.

I used incorrect terms, and that's where some of this confusion is from and I apologize, but the thoughts remain the same and I provided support. Clarence simply claiming that the site doesn't support my claim is just a claim of his own. I broke down what that site said in my previous post. Anyone can check it.

Clarence in Wonderland,
Pulling from your expertise, are there website where someone could generate a list of names, for places and characters? Maybe there is another resource?

@Larry

Are you looking for something along these lines...

You're making a campaign setting which takes place in an Egyptian analogue country. You'll need authentic sounding place names for the cities, rivers, mountains, etc. You'll also need a list of authentic sounding NPC names.

Something like that?

For names, what I do is find a dictionary for that language and just page through until I find something that sounds good. You can find dictionaries on google books or elsewhere on the net. What I find less useful are the dictionaries that have clever search interfaces. It's way more useful to just have a big PDF list of words. For placenames, I usually use a good atlas of the world and pick village names.

If you're looking for a list of names, a google search can work well. I was led me to this list
http://www.angelfire.com/me3/egyptgoddess/People.html

For two of my gaming groups, this is definitively good enough.

However, at my other table, we gotta be more precise :) Our BBF campaign takes place in an alternate-world version of Viking Scandinavia. All 5-6 players are lingiusts at the university and two of them translate Old Norse in their spare time. So I've got to make sure that all my Old Norse is spot on. I write out the Norse words in the scholarly orthography as well as International Phonetic Alphabet so we can pronounce things properly - at least according to Icelandic tradition. This level of detail, well, not going to be necessary for most groups. But for publishing professional game products, I'd want to get things as accurate as possible. If you have a specific language(s) in mind, PM me and I'll find something good for you.

What I don't like are sites that generate names that are supposed to sound like language X. Invariably these randomizers come up with letters and series of letters that are not attested in that language, or something that has an odd real-world meaning. I tried one for Welsh and put comments in caps here
http://philriley.tripod.com/ot.html

Saer - MEANS CARPENTER
Garnock - DOESN'T LOOK WELSH EVEN A BIT, SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING IN LOWLAND SCOTLAND
Bradwr - BEST TRY OF THE LOT. -WR IS A MASCULINE ENDING SO DON'T CALL YOUR FEMALE CHARACTER THIS
Morgan - COMMON WELSH NAME, YADDA YADDA
Kimball - NO K IN WELSH. IT MAY BE A NAME OF CELTIC ORIGIN, BUT IT AIN'T WELSH AS WE KNOW IT TODAY
Eryi - CAN'T HAVE THE COMBINATION YI
Duach - KINDA WELSHISH,
Llundein - LOOKS LIKE THE WORD FOR THE CITY OF LONDON
Kynwyl - NO K IN WELSH
Einian - KINDA WELSHISH

So that might be good enough for your improv'd one-shot, but for a published adventure or something, the Welsh Hero Garnock would be all wrong.

Far Vandimir is exotic, distant and mysterious. I've been pondering what stories I want to tell and have a mash-up of Aladdin and Haradrim (Southrons from Lord of the Rings) for ideas.

Here's probably way more than you want to know about how to make up names in Arabic in a couple of historical periods. But after having read it, I have a better feel for what names mean in Arabic society.
http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/reference/books/Beeston-1971-Nomencla...

What I'd do is use a page like the one linked below (list of Sufis) and mix and match the parts of the names. If you click on each person in the list, you'll get a wiki page with their full name, so click on "Rabia Basri" and you get "R?bi?a al-?Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sufis

Then what I'd do is take out the obviously Muslim religious aspects of the Arabic names and replace them with the fantasy-religion's words.

That would give me the personal name and the tribe/clan name.

Then, a quick browse through the page below has lots of good adjectives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Islam

Change a letter or two and you're good to go.

So, a wise woman (oracle?) at an oasis could be: Rabiya um-Alim al-Nahkai or Rabiya um-Sami al-Nahkai which is kinda might mean Rabiya the-Knowing of the Nahka clan, or Rabiya the-one-who-hears-all of the Nahka clan.