A game about industrial revolution, XIX century, victorian era. I need some in theme names for provinces (regions of your country), these can't be historical. I supposed, since the whole victorian era thing has mostly British feel the names should sound Britishlike as well?

Anyway, I always have trouble making up any sort of names so I could use some help here. Also, if you have general tips how to make up names, I am all ears :)

I need:

- list of up to 30 province names (for the country the player runs)

- list of 4-6 western country names (I suppose these should sound non British?)

- list of 4 exotic country names (like India, China, big places from where you get spice from)

- list of 10-20 uncivilized & primitive country names (some tribes you exploit via colonization)

Again, I don't want to use real historical names, yet I want them to "feel" a bit similar (in term of function).

I have noticed that, for some mysterious reason, the more details I give the less responses I recieve :) OK, forget the first post, I want something similar to these (but sounding a bit better maybe):

- Blackshire

- Cornhills

- ...

Perhaps you could write a name generator for each type of name, such that the set of names used will be different each game?

It could be very simple. For example, you could make a big list of words (or endings and such) and then just combine them randomly. Experiment until you no longer get names that look wrong.

Eg. With the province names, you could list english words (like corn, hill, black, shire as in your example), possibly add in an ending (s) and then run some checks to make sure they are not impossible to spell. With foreign country names, you can just throw together a couple of random letters and be done with it.

For example, you could make a big list of words

Well, start by looking at what actually happened during the XIXth century. Places were (re)named by the settlers after either prominent figures (eg. Queen Victoria, Princess Alberta, Prince Edward, Queen Consort Adelaide, Prime Minister Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington), the settler's original homes (eg. Brunswick, York, Hampshire, Jersey, East London, often with a 'New' prefix), or anglicized Native or historic names (Ontario, Quebec, Montreal, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Durban).

So, following that trend, try making a back story with the names of some prominent figures and original place names, then use them as roots for place names. Also, generate some non-English syllabic combinations to use as 'native' names.

You can use a historical source to generate names. Real historical place names can be reused in a game -- they're not under copyright. Writing a name generator is fun.

Hmmm, so most people suggested writing a backstory...

You can use a historical source to generate names. Real historical place names can be reused in a game

Maybe there is some technique that allows "altering" these so these are different yet feel natural (suffix/prefix/or something else maybe)?

What I did to create the game world was to create an origin legend which is the basis for everything. It was 1-2 pages, nothing massive, just enough to really nail down the vibe of the story.

Here is an interesting seed possibility for you with a built-in joke: Place names around Victoria, Australia:

http://myweb.westnet.com.au/talltrees/resources/vic_abbr.htm

You could warp most of these pretty easily.

I would also be interested in reverseengineering your way of thinking that lead to finding this list.