Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 10:32 pm
Ever wonder what placenames you would use if you were colonizing a planet? I'm not sure I could resist things like Seattle 2 and New New York.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:07 am (UTC)
Awesomeville
Hilaritown
Placegasmic
Old Geezer Geyser
μYork
Sporksylvania
Bisexualdniestr
Squidtopolis
Truth or Consequences: The Next Generation
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:16 am (UTC)
I'm laughing my dniestr right off. :)
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:18 am (UTC)
It's spelt (actually, I can't figure out how to spell kiester.)

It makes me terribly happy that the tour guide for Chornobyl knew about Transdniestr when he and I were discussing Soviet remnants and Belarus (and how difficult it is to get Belarus to pull its weight in the CEZ.)
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 03:27 pm (UTC)
I am moving to your planet so I can live in μYork and commute to my job in νYork.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:08 am (UTC)
There should definitely be a Neo Tokyo. Or Neo Neo Tokyo, depending on if the original Tokyo had already been destroyed by giant monsters and rebuilt by that point.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 08:03 am (UTC)
Definitely.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 04:04 pm (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that has already happened a couple of times. Technically, shouldn't we be up to New New New New Tokyo?
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 06:25 pm (UTC)
I also would have a hard time restraining myself from naming places after locales in video games I've played.
From Earthbound: Onett, Twoson, Threed, Fourside
Mushroom Kingdom
Hyrule, Hylia
Etc...
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:13 am (UTC)
I really liked that Titan AE actually included, upon discovery of a new planet, lines of dialog a lot like

"What should we call it?"
"How about Bob?"
"You can't name a planet Bob!"

And then it cut to a scene set there, with the tagline [Planet Bob] twenty years later or whatever. It always struck me as charming and believably done.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:14 am (UTC)
As if that movie hadn't been awesome enough, that exchange was the extra sprinkles on top of the icing.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 07:13 am (UTC)
Somewhere
Overyonder
Farfaraway
Dontgothere
Fantastastan
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 06:27 pm (UTC)
And of course, Youcan'tgettherefromhere.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 08:04 am (UTC)
I'd have "theme continents". Or maybe geographical features. All mountain ranges might be named after operatic composers, for example.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 08:11 am (UTC)
That's a great idea! Just please decide on a definition of "continent" and make any extracontinental land masses part of a different naming scheme, rather than just grouping them with their political parent's continent's theme.

-- Juli, who has once again had to struggle through a web form that had as a hierarchy: North America/United States/Hawaii, and who dreads entering Russia in to such a form.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 08:17 am (UTC)
Hm, Well, I think I'd name the continents with a scheme that would provide subnames for various smaller landmasses near them, and areas like the Pacific would probably get the satellite names, and have a central name that was equivalent to "Oceania". Hm. And Easter Island would be something silly.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 08:22 am (UTC)
"Land isolated from any significant land mass which is surrounded completely by water where there are bunnies who hide eggs for good little Christian children (and any children enrolled in public schools) to find." That would be an awesome name.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 08:51 am (UTC)
Now I'm thinking of the board from Iron Dragon. Lame themed continents, but themed continents nonetheless.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 05:05 pm (UTC)
Spaceattle
Future York
New Kalamazoo

Reminds me when I was a kid, and would spend hours drawing maps of imaginary countries. Usually my placenames were nonsense collections of syllables.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 05:33 pm (UTC)
I can't think of specific examples, but I'd leave some kind of place-holder socket for people's names. A new planet is going to have new people names, and as the aquarium 'craps up', they'll want to put those names on their towns.
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 11:18 pm (UTC)
Haldeman named an orbital station New New York in his Worlds series.
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 01:04 am (UTC)
Now that you've mentioned it, there'd have to be a Kalamazoo 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Even if I didn't really want one.

Otherwise I'd use genus names.

Actinomma
Felis
Pongo
Oenanthe

etc etc etc