With fantasy names for cities, do you prefer having odd sounding

>>51747948
Depends on the culture

>>51747948
English names for the main kingdom
Odd sounding to other kingdoms, with tone depending on the culture
the odd ones are just two-words in their language

>>51747948
IMO, odd sounding, by a landslide. Half-assed fantasy names based on modern languages that the group understand kind of ruins the immersion.

>Welcome to the ancient city, a placed forged by the ancient elder-god, a city of millennia and mystery that arose humans roamed this universe. Welcome to Bravefort!

Imagine the same line, but change Bravefort for somehting like Uluk Xemoclis or shit like that.

>>51748012
arose before***

>>51747948
I just use names from existing modern cultures translated into English like Scandinavia and Romania city names.

Sound unique enough without too much effort and work needed.

>>51747948
Capitals should have fantasy names, cities and towns can have two word names because most of the time a settlement springs up and thrives because of its favourable geographical location, and so the name becomes a indicator for what it's known for, such as Four Rivers or Southport or Blackhammer.

>>51747948
there's no particular reason for this, but I like "ordinary English" names for most things, and fantastical names reserved for really ancient and magical places or names of states/people

I usually do a spattering of odd and ordinary names, and steal from actual city names. Since none of the players have a PhD in Ancient Greek Philosophy, they won't notice that almost all the cities in the campaign were actual cities.

The "ordinary names" are the usually the most modern cities and so they have a little more justification for being calling Snailport or Middletop

>>51747948
>whynotboth.jpg

Have multicultural places of interest (cities, large battlegrounds, etc) have multiple names, one for each culture that has had a stake in it. For example, the human city Farhaven (named for being the farthest major city from the center of the human kingdom) would be known to the elves as Cerylhamar, where the elven hero Ceryl overthrew the corrupt city council and freed the elven slaves.

Of course, not every shitsplat little village deserves this treatment. Hell, maybe not even every city should have multiple names. As I said above, maybe limit it to major, history-defining places.

>>51748050
Capitals are the same though. Or are literally named after being capitals. Tokyo just means eastern capital for example.

>>51748183
Right, what I wanted to add was, when a civilization gets enough shit together to form a country that needs a capital, by then chances are that they came up with a tongue fancy enough to make a fancy sounding capital that sounds cool in Common.

>>51747948
Just call it Hill Hill Hill with each word in a differrent language. Or append "New" to an existing name. In my country, they even just add the number "2" after the name and call it a day.

>>51747948
Most city names in our own world have mundane names in their own languages, and usually sound exotic only because their names derive from a really old language that's now uncommon or lost. I try and follow the same pattern and go with meaningful names in English for some towns while picking out a more exotic name for others, but with mundane roots if possible.