# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Writing, Stories, Linguistics, Toponymy and other wordy stuff ! >  Dieselpunk/Atompunk Place Names

## Chalky

Hello, currently I am working on a dieselpunk/atompunk story and I am having difficulty places. For those that do not know what dieselpunk or atompunk is, I will provide a brief description. Dieselpunk is an offshoot from steampunk which often takes place in the interwar period (oil, combustion engines, etc) , compared to steampunks Victorian-era technology. Atompunk covers the post WWII-era and the Cold War. Bioshock/Wolfenstein are two good examples of dieselpunk and Fallout is a good example of atompunk. I want to include a bit of magic as well, but only in very small doses. Since I am trying to make an entire world, I don't want English sounding names everywhere. Currently I am delving into some Scandinavian and Baltic languages for influences, but any suggestions would help. 

For English sounding places I have:
Halcyon
Oakheart
Greenwall
Snowhaven

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## ghostofonyx

one suggestion for scandinavian type names might be to look into Skyrim, they based quite a few of the cities names on scandanavia and nord names

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## Gaheris

Some common endings from Norwegian place names (with meanings) are:
-dal or -dalen (dale/valley) 
-anger (bay/inlet) 
-sund (strait) 
-heim (home)
-stad (city)
-ø or -øy or øya (island)
-vik (cove/inlet)
-berg (mountain)
-nes (headland)
-fjord (...fjord)

**Edit**
Oops! Didn't realise how old this was! Sorry for the necro...

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## Daelin

fantasynamegenerator.com
The preeminent source for all your nerdy naming needs. It has at least a handful of generators that would suit your criteria, including one for steampunk city names, faux city names for basically every real-world nation, location names like hospital, inn, etc. Literally thousands of names to draw inspiration from or simply copy outright.

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## TurtleSoup

My advice, since those names don't immediately evoke the "flavor" of diesel/atom in my opinion, is that you look in to what names you find in games and novels of the style.
Of course you have to ask yourself, is the world inspired by non fiction, or is it completely fictional, are there conlangs and absolutely new cultures with no foundation in the ones we are familiar with? If it is rooted in reality, then you would have the typical racial/cultural rules for how cities/countries sound, for example in Papers Please, it follows a very Balkan/Slavic set of rules for the style, even though it is completely fictional...
If you stick with the old school fantasy formula of naming a city or place after two words (i.e brook haven, shadow vale, etc...) Then you could apply to this formula a set of words from "diesel" or "atom" glossary, for example: "Howitzer Fields" "Thorium Bayou" "Meltdown Canyon" "Disaster Depths" "Gunpowder Ranch" "Tzar Collider" whatever you feel has a cool "ring" to it, you could write a bunch of these down on a paper, recombine, recycle bits of each word and do a mashup, whatever brings you closer to the "flavor" you wish to evoke, you could do this in a number of languages, here's "расплавленный эпицентр" "Rasplavlenniy Epicentre" for example... Just use google translate and some imagination :p

Here's a few that just came to mind that I really like: "Charnel Trench", "Barbwire Ossuary" "Haunted Reactor" "Geiger facility"

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## ^Atti Hekotik^

Oi, 

Where I am berieved to console any corresponding permutations of a singularly noxious society; clad in the perminence of carbon combustion. I can certainly revel in the primal mutiny; as a luridly bent, exogenesis from these base and molestive habitual environments.

As a traveler, myself, I regretfully have spent too much time `under "Dodge City", to sympathize with this facite of post-apocolyptic anarchy. For me it is already, a bit too far gone.

However, to forge an exemplary parody, of such an inerrably, claustrophobic realm; seems on the level.

I definitely see why there would be an inclination to use baltic\scandanavian languages. They're a lot like Klingon', in
Many ways. However, the age specific details to these localized dialects, which have become buried under consecutive generations; have wraught a venacular of entirely new, and distinctive inflection.

Whereby, the basic envowelment of a place name, is only topical [{having been bent far out of the patriachical coherency, which was once relevant as a different beast}]

My point, is that, because you are portraying a symbolic representation of a spurned over realm; I suggest you qualify the formalities of a distinct place-name with the °un-civilization which hails from the region. The difference between populaces, would hence, implicate the confluence of inter-defactive denomonative cultures.

*-----*~an analogy, being made with various alien races, deriving discreet (species specific) evaluative inclinations, from, what is essentially, nearly the same territory.

Attok hekotik

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