# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Writing, Stories, Linguistics, Toponymy and other wordy stuff ! >  How do you name your continents?

## Endless

Hi everyone, my question comes more related into a ''realistic'' setting, in the sense that, let's say: You have a world with various races or lenguages, then, for the reader to better understand, do you give a general name that is widely used by every race, or do you have different names for every lenguage?

For example, in A Song of Ice and Fire, why is Essos called like that? It looks like the name is widely accepted in the known-world as the offical title, same goes for Westeros.

Thanks!

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## Kellerica

I can't say speak very much for realistic (I'm very much not a smart person), but given that I tend to build settings in which the cultures are more primal, I often question the need to name large areas such as continents at all. I've always felt that for people who's world generally consists of a very small area surrouding their immediate home, would not see things in a scale as large as that.

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## KaiAeon

It depends on who the creator of the map is and why it was created (POV). Also which name are you using most often in the story? Use the most commonly used name unless it's a map made by a specific race in their own language and/or transliterated/translated into the lengua franca of the region in brackets.

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## Stìophan

The names of my world of Xeon are based on (Scottish) Gaelic reworked using my own alphabet, where I've introduced additional sounds and a (sort of) algorithm for converting words.

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## CCompanion

I try to consider who the dominant culture/society is on a given land mass and create a name based on their linguistic root (I base cultures on real-world ones, so that's what I derive the language from). For example, one of my continents is dominated by a Russian expy culture, so the continents name is based in Russian. I sometimes will also make notes about what another major group calls it, but that may just be because I like dwelling in the little details (to continue the above example, the same continent also has a Romani/Cossack culture that uses the same name as the dominant group, and an Inuit/Aleut culture [who are themselves a splinter group from a Polynesian/Maori expy] who recognize the dominant naming but also have their own name for the continent).

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