Decorative image of a mouse feeding chickens with the daily prompt written in the background
Conlang Year, Day 165 prompt

Goal: Brainstorm options for naming places

Note: These strategies often focus on prominent terrain features.

Tip: The forms may include both compounds and derivations (e.g. “-town/-ton”).

Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try


Today’s goal shifts the focus to place names. Use today to brainstorm ideas for how you might name places in your conworld. I encourage you to do a little research to see how places are named in general to get inspired as you think about ways to create names within your own world. 

Some names are based on prominent terrain features, with words like “river, lake, mountain, hill, valley” showing up in place names. You might want to sketch out a quick outline of your conworld, specifically focusing on the area where your speakers live. Think about what areas might be important to your speakers (and, thus, might be named) and what major terrain features you might use in their names. 

As you think about strategies for creating names, remember that you can use a variety of methods, such as compounds (e.g. Sun Stone) or turning a lexical item into a derivational affix (e.g. turning “stone” into “-ston” in a name like Sunston).

Have some fun brainstorming ideas and thinking about what areas/locations you might want to give names to in your conworld!