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[Avelon]

I've noticed when generating worlds that there are a *LOT* of ridiculously named regions, such as 'The Rare Blizzards' in a tundra area. Don't get me wrong, I love the random and sometimes hilariously ridiculous region names, but sometimes I wish I could make it otherwise.

What I'd like to see is some kind of name file, such as the languages file, which I could use to set which nouns I wanted to be able to be used to name regions, and which adjectives would be coupled with those nouns.

In this way I could disallow names like 'The Undisputed Anus of Agelessness'. I wouldn't, of course - because who among us does *not* want The Undisputed Anus of Agelessness, a hill upon which a goblin fortress is built, in their world? But the point here is mostly that I'd like to be able to make it so that only location names that would be copasetic for the 'real world' are chosen.

[Jay]

As far as I know, it's been established that region names, much as they are in reality, are named by the nearby civilization.
Where did we come up with the Sahara Desert, or the Amazon River, though?
Hmm.
Basically, I'm saying, it's appropriate that regions would be named by nearby civilizations based on what happens in that region.
Although it'd be cool to get something like "The Anus-Blizzard of Ages", nonetheless.
The region names need more randomization, yes, but not 100% random.

[Warlord255]

I'd actually like to see less randomization and more naming based on history; for example, "The Burning Rock of Cougars" could be a hot badlands with a history of cougars killing people.

[Granite26]

1:

This stuff bugged me at first, but then I started thinking about the buffalo soldiers.  Nicknames don't make sense out of context, and this game is totally devoid of context.  It's your job to make the context.

2: I think when sphere aligned regions get added we should see more of this.  As it stands, god names kinda make sense, since the terms are drawn from the sphere they have.  Something similar for regions could work.

[Pilsu]

I would love the ability to rename regions, civs and their founding teams retroactively. I very rarely see civ names that aren't idiotic, being able to clean up after RNG's failures would probably add a dash of immersion

While we're at it, why can't be set our site's symbol on embark? I got randomly assigned a naked mole dog, not very inspiring. And I only found out 10 years into the fort as my engraver was mucking about so restarting and hoping for a better one wasn't happening

[Silverionmox]

I would love the ability to rename regions, civs and their founding teams retroactively. I very rarely see civ names that aren't idiotic, being able to clean up after RNG's failures would probably add a dash of immersion

While we're at it, why can't be set our site's symbol on embark? I got randomly assigned a naked mole dog, not very inspiring. And I only found out 10 years into the fort as my engraver was mucking about so restarting and hoping for a better one wasn't happening

Dude.. I got elves.

[Avelon]

As far as I know, it's been established that region names, much as they are in reality, are named by the nearby civilization.
Where did we come up with the Sahara Desert, or the Amazon River, though?
Hmm.
Basically, I'm saying, it's appropriate that regions would be named by nearby civilizations based on what happens in that region.
Although it'd be cool to get something like "The Anus-Blizzard of Ages", nonetheless.
The region names need more randomization, yes, but not 100% random.

Oh, I'm saying something more along the lines of being able to disable certain nouns for region names - for instance, 'Blizzards'.

I can't think of any context in which a region could be named 'Blizzards' in the real world. I have a region in my current world named 'The Rare Blizzards', and that doesn't fit at all for me. What would fit much better is 'The Land of Rare Blizzards'. I could even cope with 'The Everlasting Blizzard' as a region name. But being able to set a noun to be used only in a certain context (-of PrimaryNoun, in the first case, or OnlySingular in the second case) and adjectives to only be associated with certain nouns would make for much cleaner, more immersive names. It would be a real bitch to go through the entire list, I'm sure, but I'm also sure that someone would put one together that most people could agree upon and host it somewhere. If this suggestion actually does get implemented, heck, I'll be that person!

[Craftling]

I'd actually like to see less randomization and more naming based on history; for example, "The Burning Rock of Cougars" could be a hot badlands with a history of cougars killing people.

This is a VERY good idea. It was a bit weird getting "The Abbey of Turtle Bodice". I was rendered incapable of understanding how a river could aquire this name, so it would be nice to be able to find out how the river got it.

[praguepride]

Keep in mind that the "English names" are just rough translations. Anyone who's ever watched badly subbed anime knows exactly the difference context can make.

"The Abbey of Turtle Bodice" could actually be interpreted as the "birthplace of turtles"

Creation sites often get religious connotations (i.e. Abbey) and Bodice could be a mistranslation of "chest" or "container of sorts"

Calling it the Sahara desert is fine and dandy, but what does Sahara actually mean? I'm sure it's got some kind of translation which is probably a lot less cool then "Sahara"

It would be nice if the game could tie the names to the region (Iron Mountains would be a nice place to embark on ) but then again, if you don't randomize it a bit it becomes too bland and static

"Oh look, another "Iron Mountain"... that makes... 340,053 'Iron Mountains' to date."

If you really care about it, and you really try I'm sure you can justify just about anything. The Rare Blizards region might be called that because surprisingly enough, blizzards don't occur in that region.

Maybe Sahara can be loosesly translated to "Anus of Sand." Maybe to solve that you could have the option of turning off translations. Having it called the "etheremous" Mountains is much cooler then "Turtledroppings"

[Granite26]

Agreed with Prague...

[Silverionmox]

Sahara
1613, from Ar. çahra "desert" (pl. çahara), according to Klein, "prop. fem. of the adj. asharu 'yellowish red,' used as a noun."

If a place is nothing special, it shouldn't have a name. It's kind of strange to have nameplates everywhere in the landscape, even if no one has been there yet. It would be really interesting to be able to see where the name of a place came from (i.e. which historic event(s).

[praguepride]

So Sahara means Yellowish Sand? See, this is why you don't translate things.

It's like the crazy African names. I swear to you, a field report from Zambia had a little girl who's name was Nipples. Nipples the girl. The locals didn't know what "Nipples" meant, they just thought it sounded cool. I don't know if anyone ever told her what her name really meant.

[Drakale]

I don't know if anyone ever told her what her name really meant.

Seeing as there is about 6000 non-dead languages on earth at this moment, there is a pretty good chance that your name is equally hilarious to at least one of them. I don't get how english is the medium upon which names real meaning should be measured 

[Granite26]

Because that was the language the parents were first exposed to the word in?

[Drakale]

Umm there is about 65 indigenous languages in Zambia according to wikipedia, the origin of the name *might* come from one of those, and the sound only have been translated to english... You know, like Wang or Putin.