S.O.S: I suck at naming Countries!

[Cathbad]

Mentár was the name I gave the first legendary 'hero' of my world. The city he created, I naturally named Mentária.

After that, I named most of the countries on the northern continent with names that abounded like they belonged to that same "language", even when they also incorporated specific landmarks. Malopia, Cason, etc.

Odd... the names above were autocorrected to the way I've spelled them in my copy of Word! Does the autocorrect use my own copy of Word's dictionary on here??

 

[Joshua Jones]

Finalitas, finis, finitus...

Final, finish...

Our country is the Biblical end of the land. We'll stay unnoticed until...

Fair enough, although I suspect the Soviets noticed your land before then... the point I was trying to make, of course, is roughly the same as what you made in your second post; real world names are often rather drab compared to what we think we ought to be naming lands in fantasy, but there is an open question about why we push ourselves to do so. I think that was the main point you were making also, right?

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

How about Alta Alba for the kingdom name and altiens for its people?

Doesn't Alta Alba mean Scottish Highlands?

 

[Abernovo]

I'm The Starving Writer, AND I'M GOING INSANE!

At least you're in the right place for it.

Well, rather than invented names, why not give meaningful names in English? Many place names are originally little more than descriptions of what a place is (ie, little farm, new castle, broad ford) but over the centuries they become corrupted or simplified.

I'd agree with Brian. Either go with English, or a mix of English, and a few 'local' signifiers. For instance, aber in Brythonic languages signified a river mouth, chester/cester denotes a Roman settlement, -ham and -wich are suffixes for (I think) Anglo-Saxon townships, dun- is a prefix from Gaelic to denote a fort - and Dumbarton is a corruption of this.

So, Andrew's Hamlet, named after the person who really set the place on the map as a trading post, could be corrupted after a while to Anersham (I've no idea if such a place exists already). You could make up your own prefixes and suffixes, if you wanted.

Albania is actually a country in Europe, so scratch that.
Anglia is the exo-name given to England by some European nations, so scratch that too.

Yep, I'd definitely do a bit of research, and avoid existing locations. Anglia is the home of the Angles (and Saxons), and it just so happens that some languages retained that, rather than the English, who corrupted their own homeland name to England. Not a dig, we all do it to our languages; 'corruption' of the language is just change over time - if it doesn't change at least a bit, it will likely die out.

Doesn't Alta Alba mean Scottish Highlands?

Alba (pronounced Al-uh-pa) is the Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) name for Scotland. The Scottish Highlands are An Gàidhealtachd na h-Alba, though. Alta is an Iberian/Spanish word, e.g. Rioja Alta, for the high Rioja region, as opposed to Rioja Baja, for one of the other regions of Rioja located at lower altitude.

Good luck!