Whats in the name?

[Dean525]

Not sure if this has been done beofre, I did have a look.

 

For a long time ive been trying to think of a fictitious name for my layout, but everything I come to come up with is rubbish or doesnt sound very realistic. So how do people decide on a name for their layout because im stumped.

 

Dean

[37176]

Tell us a bit about your layout and we'll see if we can help.

 

I tend to pitch my layout in a real place.

[buffalo]

One approach is first to choose an area in which to set your railway, then try to get a feel for the forms of names that occur in that area. You may find it useful to look at the Ordnance Survey placenames pages, or the English Place-Name Society's county index. You might then choose a real name, or construct a fictitious one from typical name elements from the region.

 

Nick

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

One approach is first to choose an area in which to set your railway, then try to get a feel for the forms of names that occur in that area. You may find it useful to look at the Ordnance Survey placenames pages, or the English Place-Name Society's county index. You might then choose a real name, or construct a fictitious one from typical name elements from the region.

 

Nick

 

This is what I did. I called it Readstoke, SR set in the post nationalisation steam era with a few all green early diesels. I Googled the name just to make sure. Nothing came up.

[Coombe Barton]

I've gone for generic names of the area, Devon/Cornwall for me. First Coombe Barton, Coombe = valley and Barton = major farmhouse. That's the terminus. The lines runs from the junction at Buckland Regis along the valley of the River Sether (sether = Cornish for arrow) via Compton Bishop. All generic names and not real places.

 

This is exactly what Nick suggests, although we've arrived at the solution independently.

[Dean525]

Tell us a bit about your layout and we'll see if we can help.

 

I tend to pitch my layout in a real place.

 

My layout is a 50's BR(W) branch line terminus, based in pembrokeshire, my home county. Its not based on any prototype.

 

A name I did think to use was "Cardi-bach", It was the nickname given to the Whitland - Cardigan branchline and there is regular reference made to it in history books. It doesnt feel like a name for a village or station though but does sort of sound like a quiet backwater in wales.

[Coombe Barton]

You could always go with the village in 'Under Milk Wood' - Llareggub - although Dave Rowe did one his early dioramas using that name.

[Kenton]

Each new layout gets a name starting with the next letter in the alphabet - then with same feature of the layout. It started with Ardby Junction and I'm now up to 'S' with Sychpwll. Some got beyond just track and some survived longer than later ones. Some just get abandoned to resurface years later when a "clear out of old junk" is decreed by "management"

 

I keep promising myself a prototype for my retirement but I think I'll be up to "Z" by then.

 

Given the choice of spending time kit building rather than running trains round a length of track I tend to loose interest in layouts faster than I can think up a name, whereas another kit will always tempt me.

 

I am sometimes surprised when, after selecting a name, googling it brings up a real place.

[Kris]

Modelling a real location makes the choosing of a name very easy, but the fictional layouts that have the most effective names for me are ones that tend to respect the conventions of how names developed. This website can give lots of ideas (It's heavy going at times). Much of the time the name that you come up with will be very similar to a real name.

[Oldddudders]

You could always go with the village in 'Under Milk Wood' - Llareggub - although Dave Rowe did one his early dioramas using that name.

As Dylan Thomas well knew - it sounds better backwards, and might apply to the output of some armchair modellers!

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

If the area is roughly the route from Whitland to Cardigan, then you can mix place names of Welsh and English derivation. I would be unable to resist the temptation of the 'Gosforth and Cwmbach' line myself...

[Brinkly]

For me it is a personal thing. For my first 00 terminus layout, which ran to a small halt before the fiddle yard, I decided to use my grandparent's surnames (Brinkly - Grandfather & Elmslie - Grandmother) so had Brimstock for the station and Elmslie Road for the halt. The idea being that Brim means either the edge or boarder and stock meaning trading, so the Latin translation is a town which is near a boarder and trades, hence Brimstock. Elmslie was purely because I felt it could be a real place in Devon!

 

Regards,

 

Nick.

[barryowen]

What about adding an identifier to an existing staion name? My SR 1960s LSWR mainline layout is West Hersham: goes nicely with all the other W's on that stretch - Walton, Weybridge, West Byfleet, etc. For modern image, "Parkway" could be used anywhere.

[Gwiwer]

Place names have evolved over very many years and owe a lot to the history of an area. Thus in some areas we find Celtic names, in others Anglo-Saxon and there are many other influences at work.

 

Look at maps of your themed area and pick elements of the names which occur there. In the south-east we will find "-ham", "-ing" and "-ton" occurring very frequently and often in combination such as Durrington or Southampton. If it's by the coast then the suffix "-by-Sea" or "-on-Sea" is also quite common.

 

Move farther north and we find elements such as "-thorpe" and "-by" in places such as Thorpe-le-Soken, Mablethorpe, Willoughby and Grimsby. In the north east and up into Scotland "-burgh" replaces the English "-borough" (or "-brough") such as Middlesbrough and Edinburgh

 

This gives plenty of scope to start naming your places according to region.

 

My own layout uses typically Cornish but fictitious names: Penhayle Bay (includes the Cornish "heyl" rendered as "hayle" in English and meaning estuary), Treheligan ("Tre-" being a very common prefix meaning homestead or the home of ....."), Ponsangwyn (The White Bridge), Nansglaw (literally "rain down" or "raining down" and used to name the tunnels where a rainwater downpipe passes through the scene!), Darras (the area around the back door since "darras" means door in Cornish) and Pryce Moor which is a pun on "Prys" (cost - in monetary terms) and so means literally "Costs more".

 

If you really can't come up with place names then I'm happy to help suggest a few by PM; all I need to know is the general area your layout represents.

[Buhar]

You probably should avoid using Parkway without there being a car park, it being the long-distance equivalent of park (pay a fortune) and ride.

[bike2steam]

Or take the name of a place that has significance, as in my case, my current layout 'Cannons Lane' is named after a lane where my paternal grandparents, and 2 uncles (grandmother's brothers+ families) lived, in the village where I grew up (Fyfield, Essex).

[grahame]

goes nicely with all the other W's on that stretch - Walton, Weybridge, West Byfleet, etc.

 

It used to be a record run of six consecutive stations starting with 'W'; Walton-on-Thames, Weybridge, West Weybridge, West Byfleet, Woking and Worplesdon, but West Weybridge was re-named Byfleet and New Haw.

 

G.

[Dean525]

I find it very interesing at how people have arrived at names for there layout. I like the idea of combining local names to come up with something or using a name thats significant to me, has given me lots of to think about.

 

I dont really like the idea of using a name of an actual prototype unless you have gone some way to making the layout look like the real thing.

 

I found this website on my hunt for a name -

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/freefun/didyouknow/placenames/welshglossary-a-b.html

[petethemole]

If you were modelling a town on the coast or a navigable river on the east or south coasts of England, you could use a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon "wic" (pronounced like the 'ch' in 'loch') meaning a trading place. It occurs in Norwich, Dunwich, Harwich and formerly in York (Eborwic, then Yorvik), London(wic) and the early name of Southampton, Hamwic. The element "hithe", a landing place, has also developed into such names as Hythe, Rotherhithe etc.

 

Pete

[Boris]

The UK has a fine history of unusual place names, it's sometimes worth looking back a bit for names that have since disappeared. Seven Mile Bottom was always a favourite of mine, as is "Linger and Die", which was a real place in County Durham. Going further afield I've always found Hell and Highwater (Texas) to be fairly amusing.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Ever so slightly deviating; however layout names become even more interesting with overseas layouts - or rather those based in non English-speaking countries.

 

One of the challenges for our Japanese layout was to pick a name that sounded plausible, translated well and did not mean anything rude. Care was needed not to call the layout something like 'You Smell' - or some suchlike - in some Japanese dialect.

 

Sometimes you see some rather cheesy layout names, intended to be a witty play on the language, for some overseas layouts...doesn't really do it for me though.

 

In the end, a couple of small towns situated in the area where the layout was set formed the basis for the layout's name. Whilst a good name, Yamanouchi Oshika is a little long and tends to find itself abbreviated to Y-O in more day-to-day conversation...

[bluebottle]

The UK has a fine history of unusual place names...

I quite agree; why make up a name when so many places with interesting and attractive names but no railway station could be honoured by ones modelling efforts? Browsing an OS map of the chosen area could be a pleasurable and fruitful piece of research.

[Kenton]

The UK has a fine history of unusual place names, it's sometimes worth looking back a bit for names that have since disappeared. Seven Mile Bottom was always a favourite of mine, as is "Linger and Die", which was a real place in County Durham. Going further afield I've always found Hell and Highwater (Texas) to be fairly amusing.

We could even degenerate into the Wallops of Wiltshire or the Piddles in Dorset ?

[shortliner]

Mine are usually some form of a pun - boards that fold in the middle have been Foldingham - last part pronounced 'em) and Folden Hafen, Upanover( Upper Nover as an alternative) or named for friends - St Johns Yard is a case in point - currently thinking about the Gilbert & Northpoint RR. Then there ar place names like Ness Street and Ross County Shortline - named after a local football teem

[definate maybe]

When planning or armchair modelling I normally dont consider making up place names and just look at a map of the area where the layout would be based. Back in Steam days there were stations at even the smallest of locations so picking a village name out of a map can easily work. These days with the disappearance of lines its very easy to pick a name from a map which hasnt got a station. This may mean a hamlet has grown into a major town depending on how busy your location is but I find this a bit more satisfying than making up a name, especially as I like to do a rough time table. It always seems a bit strange naming 10 real stations/ locations and then adding a made up name at then.