NationStates Jolt Archive


What's the meaning of your nation's name?

Aurono
30-10-2007, 12:06
Well, I was wondering... were do you guys and girls get the ideas for your nation's name? What does it mean?
Some are pretty obvious (Espana de Franco, ---Soviet Union---, Garnet Til Alexandros, etc...), but I was wondering about such things as "Mbulu" and "Sarawakh". Well, mine was originally supposed to be called "Aurora", but that, as you can guess, didn't work out, because I was couple of years to late and another nation had already taken this name to beyond the grave.
So I tried "Aurona", which did not work as well. Then I tried Aurono, and that's what I am now. So how about you?
Ifreann
30-10-2007, 12:11
It's Irish for hell.
The Secular Resistance
30-10-2007, 12:12
The meaning of my current nation's name is pretty obvious.. But I had a nation called "Ness Ziona", which the name of my home town.
Tapao
30-10-2007, 12:13
well Tapao is a very misspelled name of a figure in finnish folklore
Lunatic Goofballs
30-10-2007, 12:13
My name is actually an ancient Mayan phrase which loosely translates to: 'He whose testicles can crack stone'.

*nod*
THE LOST PLANET
30-10-2007, 12:15
Mine is a social commentary on the ball of mud we ride through space.
Brutland and Norden
30-10-2007, 12:19
This nation was meant to have a Scandinavian influence, hence Norden (guess which countries), and Brutland... well, I thought I made it up, but it seems that my subconscious took it from the NS FAQ (http://www.nationstates.net/77473/page=faq#politics).
Kyronea
30-10-2007, 12:29
Well, I was wondering... were do you guys and girls get the ideas for your nation's name? What does it mean?
Some are pretty obvious (Espana de Franco, ---Soviet Union---, Garnet Til Alexandros, etc...), but I was wondering about such things as "Mbulu" and "Sarawakh". Well, mine was originally supposed to be called "Aurora", but that, as you can guess, didn't work out, because I was couple of years to late and another nation had already taken this name to beyond the grave.
So I tried "Aurona", which did not work as well. Then I tried Aurono, and that's what I am now. So how about you?

I can't read today. I read this as "What is the meaning of your mother's maiden name?" How the hell should I know the meaning of Voyles?!

Anyway, it's just a random set of syllables I concocted, much like any other name I used to come up. Probably my favorite of all time, too...I've never been able to make a better one.
Brutland and Norden
30-10-2007, 12:35
Anyway, it's just a random set of syllables I concocted, much like any other name I used to come up. Probably my favorite of all time, too...I've never been able to make a better one.
Actually your name sounds like a brand of nail polish here.
Kyronea
30-10-2007, 12:36
Actually your name sounds like a brand of nail polish here.

Well I suppose that was bound to happen eventually.

Wait, what? Nail polish?!
Brutland and Norden
30-10-2007, 12:39
Well I suppose that was bound to happen eventually.

Wait, what? Nail polish?!
Yes, and they even have a jingle. That's why I mistook you for a female back then... plus the -a ending of your name. :p

(oh damn! the jingle's stuck in my head!! *suppresses self from singing the jingle*)
Kyronea
30-10-2007, 12:43
Yes, and they even have a jingle. That's why I mistook you for a female back then... plus the -a ending of your name. :p

(oh damn! the jingle's stuck in my head!! *suppresses self from singing the jingle*)

Well, to be fair, a lot of people thought I was female, mostly because I have this bad habit of mentally switching between the genders and not caring which one I am mentally while posting, which leads to mixed messages.

Nail polish...:D
Dyelli Beybi
30-10-2007, 12:53
Dyelli Beybi.... take a wild stab in the dark.

It's slightly modified from when it originally appeared in Pyramids, but that was the insiration. I suspect if I reread pyramids the actual spelling would be quite jaring :P
Jeruselem
30-10-2007, 12:55
Spelling error (and the fact someone had taken the correct spelling)
Kryozerkia
30-10-2007, 13:27
Just random keystrokes structured around the letters "K". :)
Egg and chips
30-10-2007, 13:32
I was hungry.
NERVUN
30-10-2007, 13:33
Originally it was supposed to be NERV, the German word for nerve and from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion (Since the nation was my attempt at running things very, very conservatively). Sadly, NERV had been taken and for some reason NS wouldn't let me have a hyphen between NERV and UN, so it ended up NERVUN.

Strangely enough, I didn't mean to use THIS nation as the one on the forms, I wanted to use the first one I created for it. But since NERVUN was the last of the nations I habitually log into when checking my issues, it was the one I was logged into for the forms as well and, well, the post count got way too high for me to change it. ;)
NORILSK16
30-10-2007, 13:35
norilsk16 is a city in northern central siberia. near the artic circle,, seriously cold. major industrial town, extremely polluted
Hobabwe
30-10-2007, 13:36
Hobabwe, from Hobo, or bum, babwe is sortoff a country-like change of the word hobo (aka: Zimbabwe)
Saxnot
30-10-2007, 13:37
It's an adaption of a name of Thor anciently used in my home county.
Similization
30-10-2007, 13:58
Similization is the process of hypothesizing on similarities between reference sets. Sort of like similes, only with a (hopefully) practical purpose and concerning data.

Alternatively, Similization is a process used to protect against oxidation (amongst other things), covering the object (things like fake gems and glass plates) with a thin layer of lacquer. This is a similization device:
http://www.rokosro.cz/fota/Simil.jpg

Of course, I had no idea it meant anything when I signed up. It's just a combination of simulation and civilization.
Dryks Legacy
30-10-2007, 14:03
Do the people who make these threads tend to stick around? I can never remember. I know I did.
Creepy Lurker
30-10-2007, 14:07
I am creepy. I lurk.

a+b = Username.
Kitab Al-Ibar
30-10-2007, 14:10
Well, Kitab Al'Ibar is the name of the Fremen Survival Buide from the Dune series, i believe it stands for Book of Tears, but it has been a long time since i read them, so i could be wrong (Which i think is a pretty odd thing to call a survival guide, but hey, I didn't write it). :p

Since i couldn't use an ' i substituted with a -.
Best Kept Secrets
30-10-2007, 14:14
Well, I was wondering... were do you guys and girls get the ideas for your nation's name? What does it mean?
Some are pretty obvious (Espana de Franco, ---Soviet Union---, Garnet Til Alexandros, etc...), but I was wondering about such things as "Mbulu" and "Sarawakh". Well, mine was originally supposed to be called "Aurora", but that, as you can guess, didn't work out, because I was couple of years to late and another nation had already taken this name to beyond the grave.
So I tried "Aurona", which did not work as well. Then I tried Aurono, and that's what I am now. So how about you?

Sarawak = state in Malaysia. Best Kept Secrets: From a line in one of my favourite song.
Dundee-Fienn
30-10-2007, 14:14
I live in Dundee and my name is Fionn. Unfortunately I screwed up making a nation and for some reason couldn't correct it so Dundee-Fionn wasn't a possibility any more. A quick switch of vowel and I was back in business
Best Kept Secrets
30-10-2007, 14:16
Well, Kitab Al'Ibar is the name of the Fremen Survival Buide from the Dune series, i believe it stands for Book of Tears, but it has been a long time since i read them, so i could be wrong (Which i think is a pretty odd thing to call a survival guide, but hey, I didn't write it). :p

Since i couldn't use an ' i substituted with a -.


If you've read Dune, then I think you can come to a pretty good conclusion as to why. Tears = only given to mourn the dead because of the importance of water and tears are water so it could mean that it's the "Book of Importance" or something.
Mikesburg
30-10-2007, 14:17
Mikesburg is ancient Mikish for 'Land of the Virile', due to the inhabitants ability to impregnate with but a whisper and a glance.
St Edmundan Antarctic
30-10-2007, 14:37
'St Edmundan Antarctic' because, of course, it's the lands in Antarctica that have been claimed by the older nation of 'St Edmund' (in which, for practical reasons, almost all of its nominal populace actually live).
'St Edmund' because the original concept for that nation was an island in the Caribbean that had been a colony of my original nation ('Godwinnia', a group of islands in the North Atlantic that are named after both the famous Earl Godwine -- who originally discovered them -- and his grandson Godwine Haroldsson who led a fleet of Anglo-Saxon refugees to settle there shortly after 1066AD and bcame the nation's first king), a lot of the islands in that part of the world are named after various saints, and Godwinnia's cultural heritage made choosing the name of one of pre-Norman England's most revered saints for the role seem an obvious idea...
Murder City Jabbers
30-10-2007, 14:42
In gameplaying I always refer to my hometown Detroit as the Murder City, and the Jabbers is named after GG Allin's band. Usually the name makes more sense in sports games but I like to keep things uniform so I use the name anywhere that requires a collective name rather than an individual.

I used to use the name Boris as a game name for individual characters but lately I've just been using my real name.
Belkaros
30-10-2007, 14:52
Belkaros- Bel-from Latin Bella for beautiful; karo-Greek for seed or beginning. Belkaros- Beautiful beginning
OR:
Bel-Latin Bellum for war;Karo- from Latin Karotene- orange war, agent orange ect. (that one is a joke)
Carey Mulligan
30-10-2007, 14:52
It's just some girl I'm obsessed with..
Belkaros
30-10-2007, 15:05
Thats either really sweet or really creepy
Vojvodina-Nihon
30-10-2007, 15:06
I was tired and couldn't think of anything better. (The same thing happened with my old nations, come to think of it...)
Bokkiwokki
30-10-2007, 15:09
It's a Dutch (and maybe international?) semi-humoristic term for "some banana republic in Africa", or something along those lines...
Intestinal fluids
30-10-2007, 15:11
For amusement only. My prefix is The Slow Fatal Leaking of
Infinite Revolution
30-10-2007, 15:50
mine speaks for itself. although that doesn't mean people don't still ask me. i'm too tired to figure out if there is a better way to structure that sentence so i'm leaving it as a double negtative.
Howlock
30-10-2007, 16:35
Well, my nation's name really doesn't have a meaning, it just sounds cool.

It's taken from an idea for a book I had, where 8 kingdoms were governed by a confederation of their 8 monarchs. This was actually the foundation for another nation I had a while back, that has since ceased to exist. One of these kingdoms, in the story, attempted to overthrow the other seven, and my nation now is what happens when the "bad guys win."
Liminus
30-10-2007, 16:59
Well, Kitab Al'Ibar is the name of the Fremen Survival Buide from the Dune series, i believe it stands for Book of Tears, but it has been a long time since i read them, so i could be wrong (Which i think is a pretty odd thing to call a survival guide, but hey, I didn't write it). :p

Since i couldn't use an ' i substituted with a -.

It actually means The Book of Advice (or proverbs...I think...not sure what Ibar means, literally). It's also a work authored by Ibn Khaldun, a medieval Islamic scholar. I'll admit I had to wiki that for the translation of "ibar" because I recognized the name from one of my classes and that shit was driving me nuts. But yea, one of the things I love about the Dune books is that the more you learn about Arab (Islamic and pre-Islamic) culture the more you realize how well Herbert knew his stuff.

Oh, yea, and my name is derived from liminal, a state of immediate change. The term was explained to me in a cultural anthropology class, liminal states being emphasized in many cultures and all that with folk magics almost always emphasizing them (keys, eggs, shores, etc.).
China Phenomenon
30-10-2007, 17:10
I lived in my previous apartment for about eight or nine months. During that time, I had at least five different roommates (I lost count) in the two rooms the apartment had in addition to mine. All of them were Chinese exchange students.
Deus Malum
30-10-2007, 17:50
Evil God.

It wasn't originally a forum account, and was basically an attempt by me to see how fucked up a nation I could make (dictatorial theocracy, police state etc.).
Trotskylvania
30-10-2007, 17:55
My nation was a joke that went a little bit too far. I had originally intended to name it "Marxylvania" as a lampoon against the cult of personality devoted to Marx, but unfortunately that was already taken. So, I chose the next best thing Trotsky.

And then I found the General Forum, and people have been asking me if I'm a Trotskyist ever since...
Snafturi
30-10-2007, 17:56
I took three of my favorite things and kind of squished them together.
Lunatic Goofballs
30-10-2007, 17:57
I took three of my favorite things and kind of squished them together.

Snacks, Afterburners and Uri Gellar?
Snafturi
30-10-2007, 18:03
Snacks, Afterburners and Uri Gellar?

Those weren't my original words, but I like those.:D
JuNii
30-10-2007, 18:07
Originally it was supposed to be NERV, the German word for nerve and from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion (Since the nation was my attempt at running things very, very conservatively). Sadly, NERV had been taken and for some reason NS wouldn't let me have a hyphen between NERV and UN, so it ended up NERVUN.

Strangely enough, I didn't mean to use THIS nation as the one on the forms, I wanted to use the first one I created for it. But since NERVUN was the last of the nations I habitually log into when checking my issues, it was the one I was logged into for the forms as well and, well, the post count got way too high for me to change it. ;)
for the longest time, I kept reading that as Nervous.

me, an alternate spelling of 12 in Japanese.

Why 12? I once had a nation by the name of Ichi Ni. and when that nation died... I just pushed the two numbers together.
Sumamba Buwhan
30-10-2007, 18:09
I think mine is one of the obvious ones. If it isn't obvious, then I'll be taking guesses and offer a reward to the winnar!
Thracedon
30-10-2007, 18:31
Mines a combination of the names of 2 nations from the ancient world (one of which survives today), Thrace and Macedon
Anti-Social Darwinism
30-10-2007, 18:33
I kept putting things together until I found a grouping that wasn't in use.
Carey Mulligan
30-10-2007, 19:01
Thats either really sweet or really creepy

My friends reckon it's a little of both :p
The CRPA
30-10-2007, 19:10
The CRPA is an acronym for a latin phrase. I am, however, reluctant to divulge its meaning.
The Alma Mater
30-10-2007, 19:24
As I posted in the other topic on this, my nation was essentially supposed to be a huge institute of higher learning for people all over the globe.

As such, The Alma Mater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_mater) seemed appropiate.
Vetalia
30-10-2007, 19:39
The name itself is just a made-up one meant to sound cool; the actual culture of my nation is based upon, among other things, the Neimoidians from Star Wars.
Kitab Al-Ibar
30-10-2007, 19:51
It actually means The Book of Advice (or proverbs...I think...not sure what Ibar means, literally). It's also a work authored by Ibn Khaldun, a medieval Islamic scholar. I'll admit I had to wiki that for the translation of "ibar" because I recognized the name from one of my classes and that shit was driving me nuts. But yea, one of the things I love about the Dune books is that the more you learn about Arab (Islamic and pre-Islamic) culture the more you realize how well Herbert knew his stuff.

Oh, yea, and my name is derived from liminal, a state of immediate change. The term was explained to me in a cultural anthropology class, liminal states being emphasized in many cultures and all that with folk magics almost always emphasizing them (keys, eggs, shores, etc.).

Cool, i think i got my translation of it from 'The Dune Encyclopedia' yonks ago, since i kind of inherited all the books off my dad when i noticed them on the bookshelf and that was one of them. But i'm currently at uni and didn't bring it with me so i can't look it up and check. Very good books though and the origins of the fremen language are explained somewhere in it, i remember reading it once.
Maineiacs
30-10-2007, 19:59
"Maineiacs" is what I call the local yokels around here. People that were born here, as opposed to transplants like me. I later found out that there is a Minor League Hockey team by that name, but I didn't know that when I named my nation.
ClodFelter
30-10-2007, 20:01
I was looking at the face book group called I'm Tired Of People Fucking Up My Name, and one of the people was named Shawna Clodfelter. I thought, wow, that's a weird name.
Seeing Starrz
30-10-2007, 20:26
My Name Is Starr So It Just Seemed Right To Name My Nation After Me!!!!! And Plus My Cousin Gave Me The Seeing Part And One Of My Rooms Has Stars On The Walls So Thats How I Got Seeing Starrz
Enlightened Worlds
30-10-2007, 20:27
I was signing up for NS again since my last one got deleted for inactivity, then I forgot the name I was signing up with and at the time I was in class and about to leave so I typed the first "cool" name I could think. However, the name I chose sucks for forums.
Angry Fruit Salad
30-10-2007, 20:48
Wanna know the meaning of my nation's name? Look at Ifreann's sig. LOL
Mirkana
30-10-2007, 21:41
I just put some random syllables together.
Bann-ed
30-10-2007, 21:55
Well, I wanted to make my name a hyphen, but that was already taken, so I put a word around it in order to create an aesthetically pleasing look.

Edit: *looks at rank* I be pimpin' yo.
Liminus
30-10-2007, 22:16
Cool, i think i got my translation of it from 'The Dune Encyclopedia' yonks ago, since i kind of inherited all the books off my dad when i noticed them on the bookshelf and that was one of them. But i'm currently at uni and didn't bring it with me so i can't look it up and check. Very good books though and the origins of the fremen language are explained somewhere in it, i remember reading it once.

Well, I've never read the encyclopedia book but...uh...I'm fairly certain the Fremen language was more or less just lifted from Arabic directly with a few alterations. Unless you mean...Chakobsa? (I'm not sure if that's the Atreides battle language or the Fremen hunting language...I forget, but I mean the latter), in which case, I'd be interested to hear what the encyclopedia has to say.
South Lorenya
30-10-2007, 22:47
For a zelda fanfic (long, long ago -- before ZOOT came out) I needed to think up a bunch of city names for Calatia (one of Hyrule's neighbors -- see the comics). One of them was "Lorenya", which I really liked, so I used it for other things too (including an NS nation back when we had only 30 issues). It eventually died, and I rejoined a few years later, but didn't remember the password -- hence South Lorenya.
New Limacon
30-10-2007, 22:50
I can't read today. I read this as "What is the meaning of your mother's maiden name?"
"Crazy man." (True, as far as I know.)

My nation name is a reference to polar coordinates. My old nation was Naturalog (get it, natural log?) and I wanted to stick with the math theme. I added "new" because there was already a nation called Limacon.
Dalmatia Cisalpina
30-10-2007, 22:55
My nation name is a made-up province of the Roman empire. Dalmatia was a province in the ancient world; however, there was no Dalmatia Cisalpina (or Dalmatia-on-this-side-of-the-Alps).
Ashmoria
30-10-2007, 23:47
I think mine is one of the obvious ones. If it isn't obvious, then I'll be taking guesses and offer a reward to the winnar!

obviously its your real name "nahwub abmamus" spelled backwards.
IL Ruffino
31-10-2007, 00:04
I'm an alcoholic.
[NS]Click Stand
31-10-2007, 00:06
Used a random word generator. After coming up with a few bad ones like a tropical, it picked this one and I thought it sounded commanding.
ClodFelter
31-10-2007, 00:14
I don't know why, but the words click stand makes me think of a gun.
The Gay Street Militia
31-10-2007, 00:45
There were some gay-bashings in my town years ago, so a while back some friends (the ones who are almost as militant and generally-angry as me) and I made a point of walking the 'cruising area' a few nights a week with a mind to intervening if we saw anyone giving 'our people' trouble.

The premise for my nation is that in a hypothetical near future similar queer nighttime 'militia' cells form and start networking all over the place in response to rising conservatism and homophobia. The right-wingers start getting more aggressive, rolling back civil rights, letting violence and discrimination increase, until the cells all decide that queer people can't trust any government but one of their own making to stand up for them. So after extensive preparation (training, amassing arms, etc), they all converge on some city, lay seige to it, and declare it the capital of a new nationstate "of queer people, for queer people, by queer people," hence the Armed Annex of the Gay Street Militia.

Sort of like Israel... only better decorated and with a more interesting nightlife. And taken by force instead of created by the UN. Plus, most of the population growth comes from immigration (not for a lack of a major reproductive medicine industry-- donation cups and turkey basters for all!).
Boonytopia
31-10-2007, 04:29
It's a tongue-in-cheek tribute to this man (http://www.boonieforpresident.com/navigation.asp?ngref=http%3A%2F%2Fforums%2Ejolt%2Eco%2Euk%2Fshowthread%2Ephp%3Fp%3D13178250%23post13 178250).
CthulhuFhtagn
31-10-2007, 04:44
Judging from context, it's either "Dead Cthulhu" or "Dreaming Cthulhu". The latter is more likely, since it's applied to things other than Cthulhu that cannot be called dead.
Tech-gnosis
31-10-2007, 04:52
My nation's name comes from a book on how mysticism and technology can be complementary concepts.
South Lizasauria
31-10-2007, 05:49
ICly the natives to my land are a sentient alien race imperialised by humanity. They of course are lizasaurs. The nation partitioned in it's ancient stage and stayed seperated for so long both nations evolved into new sub breeds of lizasaur. Modern South Lizasauria has as many humans as lizasaurs because both races set aside their differences, however north and south still have resentful racist feelings for each other even though the politicians from both factions want to have peace.
Gartref
31-10-2007, 06:15
Gartref is Welsh for "Home"
Free Soviets
31-10-2007, 06:17
anyone care to guess?
Ordo Drakul
31-10-2007, 06:24
Ordo Drakul means "Order of the Dragon", an order of knights formed by Holy Roman Emperor Otto III to protect Christendom from Islam. It's first Grand Master was an ancestor of mine, Vlad III of Wallachia, and since Wallachia was taken, I took the Order's Latin name for my country.
Delator
31-10-2007, 06:33
I created this name randomly for a character of mine from Diablo II...

...a level 96 Druid werewolf in case you were interested. :p

I later learned that I had not created a new word...but instead had unknowingly utilized a Latin one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delator

Delator (plural Delatores) is Latin for a denouncer, i.e. who indicates to a court another as having committed a punishable deed.
Soheran
31-10-2007, 06:45
Well, the folk etymology among Soheranians is that the name comes from "so he ran"... it represents the courage and will to defy and escape oppressive circumstances.

I don't have the heart to tell them the truth (http://forums4.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13034798&postcount=351).
The Loyal Opposition
31-10-2007, 07:01
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyal_opposition
Eureka Australis
31-10-2007, 08:59
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade
Cameroi
31-10-2007, 10:52
both the name and the motto were inspiered by a couple of short stories by r.a.lafferty. an author i highly recomend to anyone who doesn't already know of him. i'm pretty sure at least one of them was in the anthology, strainge doings. i'm not sure if the other was in the same one or one of the other compilations of his shorter works (which are very deffinately his better ones). during the 70s and into the 80s his fiction also appeared in analog and the other sciffy and fantasy 'zenes of that period.

there are a couple of lafferty fanshrines on the web, one of which has the full text of one of his stories.

it was the story that featured the formation of the cameroi parent teacher apparatus especially that inspired the motto:"anyone can form a committie"

the the concepts behind the flag and the concept of the nation as a whole are somewhat deeper, but the name and motto are pretty frothey, in a perhapse interestingly twisted sort of a way.

=^^=
.../\...
EBGuvegrra
31-10-2007, 13:46
The name is a self-referential pun on how the name itself was formed, slightly modified to change it into a official-looking 'persons name' format.

(Previously I had a space after EB, but that nation died out from an unfortunate coincidence of loss-of-the-login-cookie and losing-of-the-registered-email-account, coupled with an earlier (but unnoticed), incident best described as no-longer-remembering-of-the-password. After starting a replacement nation up but then going idle for a couple of years, I fairly recently decided to get back onto NS.)

My nation's flag might give you the clue, and also the national motto, though that latter may only be if you recognise it for what it is, in which case you're home and dry anyway. :)
H N Fiddlebottoms VIII
31-10-2007, 14:11
Henry Nigel Fiddlebottoms VIII was the name of my grandmother . . .
(No it wasn't)
Deus Malum
31-10-2007, 14:22
Judging from context, it's either "Dead Cthulhu" or "Dreaming Cthulhu". The latter is more likely, since it's applied to things other than Cthulhu that cannot be called dead.

Cthulhu Fthagn actually means "Cthulhu Waits" or "Cthulhu Dreams" to be more precise.
Lunatic Goofballs
31-10-2007, 16:57
Henry Nigel Fiddlebottoms VIII was the name of my grandmother . . .
(No it wasn't)

Suddenly, it all becomes clear now... :D
Cenibesi
31-10-2007, 17:42
I just spent an hour combining different letters until I came up with something I liked.