Best Of

The proposed names the Government is considering calling its new towns

- Elizabethtown (after the Queen)
- Pankhurst (after suffragette Emmeline)
- Attleeton (after ex-PM)
- Athelstan (first King of England)
- Seacole (after nurse Mary)

https://www.thetimes.com/article/ea09d6e1-85bc-4c2f-b24f-8999ef9b9006?shareToken=d69d8a19030b64732d1ebcaeee4c5a6e

Naming towns after people is a bit naff.

There are a lot of place names in England named after people: someone's field, or someone's village, etc, but the names are so old, and have been subtly corrupted, that we don't recognise them as such anymore.

So it's a weird combination of being completely normal, and sounding really odd and lame.

Suspect there's an analogue of Adam's Law of Technology here; any new name for a new town will sound wrong and artificial, because it wasn't there when we grew up.

Maybe we should come at this the other way. Instead of commemorating anyone, get AI to generate 100 things that sound like British place names, focus group them to find the least obtrusive three, and then make up a story about them.

Sort of like Lymeswold.

You don't need to use AI. There are a whole bunch of place name generator tables used for RPGs. Just roll a few dice.

I think that, with a bit of effort, you could generate a new place name by simulating the process many of our existing place names have gone through.

So, take Æthelstan as an example. I'm sure if you asked an expert on Anglo-Saxon place names they could tell you that "Æthelstan's town" would probably have been something like "Æthelstan's burgh", which through centuries of usage would have been shortened to the more easily pronounced "Stanborough" or "Athelsbury". Job done.