Reconciling alternate world names with real world ones

Question

I am working on a setting that, in part, chronicles the history of a space faring civilization. The early parts of this chronicle is also an alternate history that is analogous to our own history. For example there was a great civilization that ruled over much of Europe that is analogous to the Roman Empire. Or a major global conflict at the end of the industrial age that is analogous to World War One.

The issue I am having is reconciling this alternate history with names used in our own world. For instance, in my world people living in England would be culturally similar to the English of our world. However, as this is an alternate history, they would not refer to themselves as English. This means that if I described a colony on another planet that was settled by the English I could not simply say Colony of ____ was established by the people of England. Instead I would have to say something like the Colony of ____ was established by people of ____ Isles off the coast of mainland ____. To an audience the latter doesn't convey much meaning.

This wouldn't be much of an issue if this was the only colony, however, my setting contains MANY different locations all of which have some connection back to Earth and Earth cultures. Additionally it's harder to hint at a colony's culture with names alone. I can't hint at New Tokyo being a Japanese colony because old Tokyo itself would have a different name. Instead I would have to add redundant descriptions just to explain something that could normally be done with a single word.

Is there a way I can use alternate history names without needy lengthy descriptions or a an appendix of ____ = England, ____ = Japan? Or should I just give in and use real world names because this current setup is too complicated to be worthwhile?

As some extra context, I am currently not writing a story. This project is currently in a worldbuilding phase and I intend to use it as a setting for multiple stories. The naming issue is something I foresee as being a major problem so I'd like to solve it sooner rather than later.

Answer 1

It just sounds like an alternate history; use the real names. Using something else, people will figure out the truth anyway, and the result will be irritation -- as if you are pretending to have developed a deep history but just cribbed from real history, and changed the names (which is what you are doing).

If you have any differences in the history that make a difference, highlight them.

"Things would have been different if Booth had succeeded in killing Lincoln... I think somebody rigged his gun to explode like that. It had to be Spangler, the stage hand."

However you want history to turn out, it is easy enough, history is very fragile and can take a whole new direction with the tiniest nudge. Some influential politician dies of a choking accident as an infant, or falls down the stairs. Whatever.

But because history is so fragile, it doesn't make sense (it sounds unrealistic) for history to remain largely the same with all the country names changed. England's history would have to change dramatically for it to not be named England, The same for America not being called America, or Germany not being called Germany. there is no reason to believe everything would work out the same if all these countries had different names, because they would also have necessarily different cultures and different politics.

Just use the names, and "touch up" history as you wish, and make it clear to readers by example (like Lincoln surviving the assassination conspiracy) that they shouldn't expect the history of the world to be true to reality. It's an alternate history.

Answer 2

Before you can really answer this in depth, you need to consider when your history diverged; e.g. "England" comes from the "Angles" who arrived in the 5th-century AD - but "British Isles" derives from the Britons, and is first used in the first century BC. (The "Angles", in turn, got their name from the Angeln Peninsula where they originated) So, depending on when the divergence is... You might have one or both of those names still in use.

On the flip side, "Tokyo" derives from it being the Capital City (kyo) located in the East (To). Even if it's not located at the exact same location, it's not unreasonable for a city with the same name and political role/significance to exist. This is similar to Kyoto ('Capital City') which was briefly known as Saikyo ('West Capital') or — in China — Beijing ("North Capital"), Nanjing ("South Capital"), or Xijing ("West Capital"). Even the name "Japan" basically translates to "East" (literally "Sun Origin", more poetically "Land of the Rising Sun"), and refers to the fact that... Well, there's a whole lot of nothing further east of them for quite some distance; and lots of land to the West instead.

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Many place names tend to be somewhat descriptive or logical. So long as your Alternate History isn't making radical changes like crashing islands together, or splitting continents apart, then many names are going to stay at least similar, once you adjust for Linguistic Drift. By which I mean: if this is an alternative history that stretches back more than 600 years, then the characters in your story probably aren't going to be speaking the same English we're used to, so you have to hand-wave that as being translated into terms the reader is familiar with anyway.

Answer 3

As I see it, you have the following options:

Alternate History

If your story is alternate history, that is, if the history of your world is exactly the same as that of Earth up until a certain point in time and then the developent diverges, use real world names.

Alien World with Similarities to Earth

If your story is set on a world that is both similar to and different from Earth, use different names and a combination of the following:

• Describe enough of the relevant aspects of that world in your text to clearly show the similarities and differences between your world and Earth.
• Display a map of Earth (or one similar enough to make readers think of Earth) with different names on it before the beginning of the text.
• Explain what kind of text it is in a foreword or a blurb.

What I think you should do at this point is define your genre and look at other works in it and how they approach this problem. You will eventually need to market your book, and for that you need to know what it is that you are trying to sell and what readers expect from it.

So the big question is, are you writing alternate history or are you writing fantasy? Much of your solution will depend on your answer.

Answer 4

Use names that are exactly as different as they need to be, no more, and no less.

The way you use names (and language in general) is part of how you create an image in reader's minds: when you use a familiar name, the reader brings their knowledge of the real world; when you use an unfamiliar one, they look for clues as to why it's unfamiliar.

A common example is this: if you have an animal that is exactly like a rabbit, but you call it a "smeerp", the reader has to spend effort understanding what a "smeerp" is, when "rabbit" would have conjured the right image straight away; but if you have a completely alien creature, and you call it a "rabbit", the reader will have to adjust their mental image every time it does something non-rabbit-like. (This can be done for deliberate effect, to spring surprises on the reader; but that is a subtle trick to pull off well.)

Similarly, if a reader sees the name "England", they start with an image of the England they know, until you tell them otherwise. If they instead see "South Brittania", they'll start with a slightly hazier image, that this is somewhere they can put on a map, but is somehow different. If they see "Amboria", their initial image will be of an unknown country that doesn't exist in our world; they'll see resemblance to England as coincidence, allegory, or laziness, rather than as alternate history.

A more specific example: if in your world, Canada was never conquered by the British Empire, you might rename it to "Greater Quebec", highlighting that this is not the "Quebec" of our world, but not quite our "Canada" either. On the other hand, if the only difference is where the border between Canada and the USA falls, you probably want to keep the name "Canada" and introduce the difference to the reader in some other way, as and when it becomes relevant.

Answer 5

I like the approach to use names that have some linguistic or cultural relation to the existing places in our world, while still being different. In combination with using the actual names sometimes, this creates the impression that the world somehow diverged, but not everywhere and not that much. Due to the cultural and linguistic relations, I find it quite easy to relate to these places and people without further explanation.

Some examples from fantasy, where alternate worlds exist:

His dark materials by Philip Pullman (Link):

• Oxford → Oxford
• Some port in Lapland → Trollesund (a reference to trolls in swedish culture)
• Norway → Norroway
• Svalbard → Svalbard
• Some city in Italy → Cittàgazze (Italian for City of the Magpies)

Reckless by Cornelia Funke (recounting the German names from memory):

• France → Lothringen (a region in France)
• England → Albion
• Japan → Nihon (Japanese pronounciation of “Japan”, latinized)
• Moskow → Moskva
• Russia → Varangia
• America → Alberica
• Hamburg → Hammaburg

I hope this can provide some inspiration. To me, theses slight alterations made the worlds much more alive in both of the books.

Answer 6

a light frame challenge

World builder anxiety is a common ailment of thinking too much about 'set dressing' and lore, without any current story, conflict, or main character to provide an anchor or ground the decisions inside a functional narrative.

Don't overthink it.

From a writer's POV you are putting the cart before the horse. Worldbuilding should expand the reader's knowledge through inference and implications usually because the protagonist is embedded in the world and cannot comment on the similarities and differences to the 'real world'.

In the context of being creative for creativity's sake, there's nothing wrong with world building first. Just understand you are leaping to the end where a 12 book series has already been published, and a fan has drawn a large map with all the locations mentioned in the 12 novels.... You are pre-creating your own fan art and backstory, for a series that has not been written.

Worldbuilding adds context necessary to the reader. What you are doing here is pointing to England and telling us it's "Not England™". You are pointing at Rome and calling it "Not Rome™".... This is a mixed message.

As opposed to experiencing the wonder and awe of a new scifi world, and letting the reader understand the nature of it (this part, at least) through show-don't-tell: actions, conflicts, clues, and subtext. Alternate History is usually about very specific divergences from our world to create social commentary. I don't know what the goal is here.

If you want the reader to read 'NeoTokyo' and that should be shorthand for all the tropes and expectations from other stories, call it NeoTokyo. If you're trying to find logical foundational worldbuilding similarities but create a whole new experience for the reader, don't call it 'NeoTokyo'. Even if it is, allow the reader to discover it without all the pre-loaded baggage.

Writing needs to communicate clear ideas to another person, so they can 'play the story' live in their own minds. Too much information (world building, lore, backstory, logistical maps) is the paraphernalia of tabletop gaming, and the nth printed edition of a beloved series.

At this point you have no readers, no published stories, and no fan conventions – there's no reason for you to tame your world building with practicalities, or reader preference, or story 'rules'. You are building a very large stage and asking what color the curtains should be to match all the productions that will ever take place there. It's not a 'bad' question but there is no meaningful answer. This is style before substance.

Once you start writing the stories, and are forced to reduce the world to just what the protagonist knows and can see, all this world building gets abandoned for the sake of a clearer narrative.