: Re: How to create a good name for a fictional nation in my story? I really have problems giving the military nation of my protagonist a unique, but also serious name that fits into the whole

Look at names of real countries in the region where you are setting your fictional country, and try to match the pattern.

For example, there are several real countries in south Asia with names ending in "-stan", such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan. So a name ending in "-stan" would sound plausible. Several countries in Europe have names ending "-ia", like Romania and Slovakia. Etc.

If you know the language, or with a little help from an on-line translator, you can come up with a name that means something. Unless this is a humor book or an allegory, I wouldn't use a name that means "evil tyrant" or something like that, a name no one is likely to actually give to their own country. More something like "Transylvania", meaning "land beyond the forest"; "Australia", from "Terra Australis" meaning "southern land"; or a Chinese friend once told me that "Taiwan" means "beautiful bay".

Try to match the "sound" of real country names. It occurs to me that a gotcha would be to have a letter in the name of your country that represents a sound not found in the languages of that region, like having an "L" sound in a country where people speak Chinese.

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: Re: How to create a good name for a fictional nation in my story? I really have problems giving the military nation of my protagonist a unique, but also serious name that fits into the whole

More posts by @Bryan361

: One more benefit which can be gleaned from submitting your writing for publication, is that occasionally someone at the publishing company will include some constructive criticism in their rejection

: Is it smart to reserve one's best ideas or to utilise them early in their writing career? At the very commencement of my writing "career" (I have virtually zero experience), I have an idea

: Printing or Private Use I want to find a Print on Demand (POD) outfit that will print my book without an ISBN, as I do not want to sell my work through any outlet, print or electronic.

: If you are based in the UK, there is a really great charity called young writers and they run lots of competitions throughout the year to encourage writers of poetry and short stories right

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