Running out of ideas for the names of cities and industries in your Railroad and Transport Tycoon fictional scenario? Do you lack inspiration for the naming of the stations in your model rail layout? Are you looking for convincing or amusing placenames for some alternate reality simulation and want to avoid mentioning existing locations? Are you fed up with uninspiring anagrams such as “Crand Ganyon” and the like? Then you might find a helpful utility at
https://railstuff.000webhostapp.com/Ortsnamen-rib.html
For obvious reasons I chose the distinctive title “Böhmische Dörfer” for the project. Have fun and send feedback !
The old lazy Hollywood hack of dropping the first letter in a given name works for people & places sometimes too.
Shelby → Helby
Charlotte-> Harlotte
New York → Ew Ork
Bart Simpson - Art Impson
Helena - Elena
Brad Pitt - RadItt
Taylor Swift - Aylorwift
Donald Trump - Onald Rump - > Rump Onald
Joe Biden - Oeiden
Valdimir Pootin - Aldimir Ootin
Elon Musky Rat - Lon Uskyat or Usky Atlon
Art Impson rail baron is building a new rail line through the Usky Atlon mountains to link the towns of Raditt & Elena with the city of Alyorswift bypassing Rump Onald cutting 120 miles off the route. That will probably put rail rival Aldimir Ootin in the position of having to expand the line from Helena to Oeiden.
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The town of Arlen in King of the Hill was based on Garland, TX. Mike Judge just removed the first and last letters and changed the “a”. My FWWR may have a spur running out that way someday. I wanted to do the whole town of Arlen but that would be quite an undertaking.
I visited Traintastic the other day in Miz’sippi. Someone had done Strickland Propane on a layout, which would be one of the first things I’d want to do as well, along with an Arlen water tower.
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Eons ago after reading about code breakers and code makers, I came up with a simplistic method of changing the sequence of vowels from A, E, I, O, U, Y to E, I, O, U, Y, A. Then every vowel in a given name was suitably changed. Taylor Swift became Teylur Swoft. Cate Blanchett became Ceti Blenchitt. Of course you could move the valves in the other direction. I also experiment with changing just a few consonants. Most of the time at produced applausible name.
Or you could take some real life examples such as the predecessor of Edwards Air Force Base was Muroc AFB, named for the town of Muroc; the town was originally named Forum but it was one of two in the state, and the United States Post office solved that problem by just reversing the name. Dallas = Salad.
A couple of the layouts I operate on have some funny names of towns or businesses, such as Fahrten Gas Supply.