Preamble
Since several decades I have been involved in virtual reality / fantasy gaming , both digital and non-digital. An aspect that had often be a headache was the successful naming (mostly, but not exclusively placenames) fit for the fictional environment to be created. At some point in the 90s some tools for generating such place names began to appear for the needs of digital strategy and business simulation games (in Transport Tycoon, Trains & Trucks Tycoon, etc.). Some were satisfactory for several purposes, some unsatisfactory, but in no case did they cover a large part of the requirements and produced many boring repetitions. At that time I wrote a small program as my personal aid - which has since disappeared - in primitive BASIC code (not even VISUAL!) which produced plausible syllables, easy to pronounce and memorize through the rules of vowel sequence and balanced distribution of consonants and vowels.
In groups of up to 6-7 letters, there were often coincidences with existing words of various languages, however without any organized sequence and without focusing for geographically or otherwise thematically definable use. In the bottom line its only practical use was limited to the production of easily memorizable passwords & aliases, which however could not be "cracked" because they did not belong to any specific dictionaries.
In 2021 I decided to deal with the subject again on a completely different basis. I compiled some formulas with string operations in Excel, which extract chunks of syllables from one or more databases and compose words (mainly place names). Each language / thematic group occupies 1 separate page of the accompanying spreadsheet.
The example posted here is quite primitive, with a limited range of syllables, and far from complete. Nevertheless, it does produce a remarkable variety of choices, and it is probably the first such attempt that includes Greek characters.
In general, the list of primary components is placed in the first column(s). Next, there are columns with the selected syllable pieces and finally 1-2 or more columns with the assembly of the selected pieces.
As an extra feature, the spreadsheet also produces links that create random township models after the generated names in the excellent Watabou Procgen Arcana by Олег Доля.
With an obvious motivation, the brand name "Böhmische Dörfer" (pun intended !) was chosen for this specific name generating procedure.
WHAT ARE THE DISTINCTIVE ELEMENTS ?
Competing online utilities already existed on the Internet, however they produced a limited and fairly predictable range of results with low success rates, and this was the main reason I started the present project. A major improvement lies in the production of 2-3 separate variants in each attempt, printed in adjacent columns. The column headed "Shorter" contains a string with the beginning and end of the generated word, while the "Longer" column contains the generated word lengthened by one more intermediate syllable or monophthong. Thus on one hand, the potential variety of results increases exponentially, and on the other hand, we produce 2-3 alternative variations of which at least 1 is almost always acceptable. So the percentage of rejectable/ failed sets decreases to negligible levels.
