Urban toponymy: real logics applicable to fiction
Real cities receive names by four dominant logics. Geographic: Mar del Plata, Rio de Janeiro, Mendoza (pre-Roman origin for 'water'). Religious: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Salvador. Honorific: Buenos Aires, Washington, Pereira. Preserved indigenous: Tucumán, Quito, Tlaxcala. Your fantasy map gains realism by combining these logics, instead of inventing all names with the same formula.
Great capitals tend to have compound names reflecting foundation: Buenos Aires alludes to port and favorable winds; Constantinople honors Constantine; Brasilia is planned and named with augustal suffix. Each city carries the trace of who founded it and why.
Small towns have more prosaic names: Cow Pampas, The Bolsón, The Slabs. Onomastic pretentiousness is reserved for metropolises. In your worldbuilding, make rural names sound simpler and urban ones more elaborate; reflects foundation history.
How to create regional coherence in large maps
If your map covers a continent, cities from distinct regions must sound linguistically distinct. Northern ones with Germanic and Norse consonants (-burg, -heim, -mark). Southern ones with open soft Italian or Iberian vowels (-ola, -ena, -ari). Eastern ones with Slavic sounds (-grad, -ovo, -slav). This differentiation creates sense of migratory history without needing to explain it.
Border cities between two cultures often have dual names: official maps show one, locals use another. Work this duality in your narrative: Vossal for northerners, Marenne for southerners, both refer to the same city. Characters who know both names are cosmopolitan; those knowing only one are provincial.
Maintain a linguistic root map: short list of 10-15 roots with meaning in your world's invented languages. vossa = stone, marenne = sea, brenwyn = bridge. Build coherent compound names and careful readers will notice the pattern.
Common mistakes in fictional city names
Mixing types without reason: if your kingdom has Tarvenport (Anglo), Saint-Lirenne (Francophone) and Veles-grad (Slavic) without justification of migrations, peoples mixing or conquests, sounds arbitrary. Each linguistic style should have historical reason in your world.
Repeated generic suffixes: if your map has Greatburg, Highburg, Newburg, Riverburg, everything becomes indistinguishable. Vary: prefixes, suffixes and compounds. No real country has 80% of cities with the same ending.
Names too easy to pronounce for exotic fantasy: if you want your elven kingdom to feel otherworldly, avoid Verdale and Maritown; use Lirenneal and Ostrevon. Targeted phonetic discomfort lends believable exoticism.
Capitals with mediocre names: if your kingdom is called Empire of the Sun and its capital is Big Town, you lose gravitas. The capital must sound imposing, historical, foundational. Verdal of the Sun, Royal Tregor, Solfar of Kings are names that match.
How to give unique character to each city
After the name, define five identity traits so the city feels alive. Main industry (port city, mining, agricultural, academic, ceremonial?). Distinctive architecture (white marble, red brick, dark wood, volcanic stone). Characteristic smell (yes, cities smell different: fish at port, spices at market, coal at mining). Daily rhythm (when it wakes, when it dines, what it does Sundays). Shared cliché (what foreigners say: 'Verdal folks are stingy', 'in Tregor everyone speaks fast').
Port cities have international commerce logic: mixed languages, exotic food, smuggling, prostitution, temporary workers. Mountain cities are closed, traditional, with narrow streets, fat-rich food. Bureaucratic capitals have ministries, formal plazas, academic bookstores, civil servant bars.
Each city should have at least one key historical event remembered in its name, plaza or monument. Schism Plaza remembers a civil war; Street of the Thousand Fallen remembers a plague; Cathedral of the Accord remembers a treaty. These internal names make the city feel historical without needing to explain 200 pages of history.
For RPG campaigns, hand-draw a basic map of each important city: four or five named districts, location of temples, market, barracks, fortress. You don't need street detail; the basic map orients improvisation during sessions.