Okay, so I needed some names. Kingdom names, specifically. Stuff that sounds, you know, aesthetic. Not just like “Bob’s Kingdom” or whatever. I was working on a little project, just some world-building for fun, and hit a wall. Everything I came up with sounded totally lame or like something ripped straight from a cheap fantasy novel.
First, I just tried brainstorming. Sat down with a notebook. Wrote down words like ‘Sun’, ‘Moon’, ‘Dragon’, ‘Vale’. Then tried sticking them together. Sunvale. Dragonmoon. Ugh. Boring. Felt completely uninspired. It’s harder than it looks, honestly. You want something that feels unique but also fits, gives off a certain vibe.
So, I went digging. Looked around online, scrolled through endless lists people had already made. Some were okay, but mostly felt… generic. Like everyone was pulling from the same small pool of ideas. Saw ‘Silverwood’ and ‘Shadowfen’ about a million times. Not really hitting that ‘aesthetic’ mark I had in my head. It was more like checking boxes than finding something cool.
Getting Somewhere Finally
I figured the problem was just sticking obvious words together. So I started thinking differently. What kind of feeling did I want? Like, peaceful? Ancient? Mysterious? Magical? I started grabbing words related to those feelings, even if they weren’t typical ‘kingdom’ words.
Started playing with sounds, too. How words flowed. Less about the literal meaning sometimes and more about the rhythm. I tried mixing bits of real place names, sometimes old historical ones, but twisting them slightly so they weren’t exact copies. Mashed up nature words with more abstract concepts. Like ’ember’ and ‘glen’, maybe ‘Emberfall Glen’? Getting warmer.
It was a lot of trial and error. Seriously, pages of scribbled-out attempts. Some sounded ridiculous. Some were too hard to say. But slowly, a few started sticking.
Names I Kind of Liked
Here’s some of the stuff I ended up jotting down that felt closer to what I was after. Not perfect, but better:
- Solstice Realm
- Veridian March
- Celestia Magna
- Whisperwind Dominion
- Aethelgard
- Umbral Reach
- Silvermere Accord
- Ironleaf Barony
- Lunaris Haven
- Emberfen
See? A bit more flavour, maybe. Some use common roots, but I tried to combine them in ways that felt a bit fresher to my ear. ‘Aesthetic’ is super subjective, right? What sounds good to me might sound dumb to someone else. But this process, focusing on the feeling and the sound rather than just jamming fantasy tropes together, seemed to work better for me.
It took way longer than I thought it would. Just for some names! But it was kind of a fun rabbit hole to fall down. Ended up with a list I can actually use for my little project now, so that’s a win.
