Improving the Scandinavian experience by having Danish dynamic names - a suggestion

[Wagonlitz]

So @Trin Tragula suggested I made a thread suggesting dynamic province names. As far as I can see there are no Danish province names in game already.
Since this obviously is a huge task I will do it in several small bites; other people chiming in would be appreciated too. Given that the sources also give names in other language I will suggest those too.
The sources I will be using are the Atlas of Frederik V of Denmark. It is a huge world atlas with 3535 charts distributed over 55 volumes. Most of those charts are maps. Those are in many languages meaning that you can see the names used in those languages at the time the maps were made. Frederik V died 14.1.1766 and most maps are from the first half of the 1700s, but there are older ones too---some even much older. I will be naming that source FV.
http://images.kb.dk/fr5atlas/

The other source is Geographie til Ungdommens Brug, 5th edition, Christian Sommerfelt, Copenhagen, 1797. As seen it is by semi famous Christian Sommerfelt who was a really skilled geographer and many other things. Among other people the famous Carsten Niebuhr also helped Sommerfelt in getting the names of places. I will call that source CS.

Another source is Matthias Moth. Matthias Moth was one of the closest advisors to Christian V and he was also highly interested in knowledge. Around 1700 he made a giant dictionary covering the entirety of Danish as it was back then. No word was too obscene or obscure. It also includes Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian words.
He also had an encyclopedia be part of the dictionary (because why not). It's something like 60 tomes in total. His work has been digitised by the Danish Language and Literature Association here: http://mothsordbog.dk/



@Trin Tragula do you need province numbers too, or is mentioning their name enough?

Back in the day dashes weren't used in Danish and places where you would have a dash would have an = instead. I have kept using that, since it firstly is what CS uses and it is the authentic thing to do.

For CS some names have a previous name noted in parenthesis. I will note those too. A few times two names are mentioned; I will separate those by commas.
Here we go:
1775 Holstein -> Holsteen. CS
2348 Chios -> Scio (Chius). CS
382 Damascus -> Damâsk (Damascus). CS
378 Tarabulus -> Trábulos (Tripolis i Syrien). CS
1855 Sidon -> Seide (Sidon). CS
405 Tadmor -> Palmyra. CS
377 Aleppo -> Háleb, Aleppo, (Chalybon). CS
2313 Antioch -> Antâki (Antiochia). CS
331 Erzurum -> Ærzerûm (Arze). CS
418 Diyarbakir -> Diarbekr (Amid). CS
409 Hillah -> Helle. CS
410 Baghdad -> Bagdád. CS
408 Basra -> Básra. CS
385 Mecca -> Mékke. CS
384 Medina -> Medîne. CS
2329 Yanbu -> Jâmbo. CS
2331 Jeddah -> Dsjidda. CS
390 Sana'a -> Saná. CS
388 Aden -> Aden (Arabia emporium). CS
400 Muscat -> Maskát (Moscha). CS
1201 Zanzibar -> Zansjibar. CS
1205 Mogadishu -> Mokadischu. CS
2258 Cape Coast -> Cap Coast. CS
1177 Cape -> Got=Haabs=Forbierg. CS. Its capital should be Cap=Staden in case province capitals are dynamic too.

There is the question of the Danish colonies in India and Africa.
In India we had Trankebar and Frediriksnagôr. As far as I can see Trankebar lies within what is the Tanjore province in game. Hence Tanjore should be called Trankebar when Danish.
Frederiksnagôr is what is called Serampore these days. I think it lies in the province of Bengal Delta meaning that Bengal Delta should be called Frederiksnagôr when Danish.

2026 Tanjore -> Trankebar. CS
561 Bengal Delta -> Frederiksnagôr. CS

There also are the colonies in Africa. These all were placed on the Gold Coast and were Christiansborg, Fredensborg, Kongsteen, Prindsensteen, and Augustaborg. As far as I can see Prindsensteen is just inside Whydah. Of the others they all lie within Gold Coast. Christiansborg was the biggest and oldest, so it must give the name. So:

1139 Gold Coast -> Christiansborg. CS
1141 Whydah -> Prindsensteen. CS

If deemed desirable other West African coastal provinces (provinces without any Danish name) could be named after the other forts. While not historical it would give flavour---and those three unused fort names were used for West African possessions IRL so who knows if they would also have been used if the fort with that name was placed somewhere else on the West African coast.

That's it for now.


Addition on the 21st of Marts.

So I did another stint in finding dynamic names. Like before I only looked in CS this time.

Lets look at the British Isles. I haven't spent much time on Scotland, since I am not sure exactly how provinces change there with Mare Nostrum.

369 Orkey -> Ørkenøerne, Orkneys (Orcades). CS

As far as I have been able to see the only change to England is the addition of Devon.

236 London -> Middlsex. CS
233 Cornwall -> Kaarnwæll. CS
Devon -> Dewon=Shiire. CS (Ended up not getting in; should it ever be added then here is the Danish name for it.)
243 Lincolnshire -> Lincoln=Shiire. CS
237 Oxfordshire -> Oxford=Shiire. CS
239 Gloucestershire -> Gloster=Shiire. CS
1861 Derbyshire -> Derbe=Shiire. CS
247 Yorkshire -> York=Shiire. CS
249 Cumbria -> Cumberland. CS
244 Lancashire -> Pfalzgrevskabet Lænkæster, Lancashire. CS
242 Gwynedd -> Nord=Wæles. CS
241 Glamorganshire -> Syd=Wæles. CS
243 Wessex -> Westsex. CS

Then there is the question of the province of Marches (province 240). For obvious reasons that isn't directly referred to in CS. The direct translation would be Markerne. That could be used if the concept of the Welsch Marches is to be preserved. Otherwise it consists of 5 shires as far as I can see. Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire. If the name is chosen to follow one of those shires, then here is the names given in CS.

Herefordshire -> Hereford=Shiire. CS
Shropshire -> Shrop=Shiire. CS
Staffordshire -> Stafford=Shiire. CS
Worcestershire -> Vorster=Shiire. CS
Warwickshire -> Warrik=Shiire. CS

Of those 5 shires Herefordshire is deemed so unimportant by CS that it doesn't get a detailed description, but just is mentioned in the tally of the shires of England.
If Markerne isn't used, I don't know which shire the name should be based on.




@Trin Tragula could would it be possible for you to give me a screenshot of Lithuania with province names visible? Otherwise I will have to wait until Mare Nostrum releases to do anything about Lithuania. Anyway there are a few things in the Baltics I am confident about not having changed.

35 Ösel -> Øsel. CS
37 Livland -> Lifland. CS
36 Reval -> Revalske Statholderskab. CS (This one is a bit icy. On one side Narva was part of Revalske Statholderskab; on the other side CS makes a point about Narva being unimportant compared to what is Reval in game. And just calling it Reval seems wrong too when there is an actual name for the province and the province did contain much more than just the city of Reval. So I think it can be defended to have the in game province of Reval called Revalske Statholderskab despite not including Narva.)



Now lets look a bit on Western Prussia:

255 Kalisz -> Gnesen, Gniesna. CS
43 Danzig -> Danzig. CS (just pointing out that it is Danzig and not Gdansk.)
2963 Notec -> Netzeland, Netz=Districtet. CS
254 Poznan -> Posen. CS
256 Plock -> Plozk. CS
1859 Chelmno -> Culm. CS
1939 Leczyca -> Lentschiza. CS
262 Krakow -> Krakov (Cracovia, Carodunum). CS
257 Warszawa -> Warschava, Varschau, (Varsaria). CS

I'm going to stop here for now.


Additions from the 12th of April.

So I got a little time this morning.

@Trin Tragula do I need to ping you every time I update or have you subscribed to the thread and if so do you then actively read it?



Well firstly there is a correction to the English names. When writing them Mare Nostrum hadn't yet released and I thought that the new province around Cornwall was Devon. Turned out to be Somerset.

I will leave the name for Devon in in case it ever is added.

4130 Somerset -> Sommerset. CS


On to the North then.

1979 Färöarna -> Færøerne. CS
17 Akershus -> Aggershuus, Christiania. CS
24 Agder -> Christiansand. CS
315 Finnmark -> Finmarken. CS
1 Stockholm -> Stokholm. CS
1985 Närke -> Nerike. CS
2 Östergötland -> Øster=Gøtland. CS
7 Västergötland -> Vester=Gøtland. CS
5 Värmland -> Værmeland. CS
6 Skåne -> Skaane. CS
1982 Blekinge -> Bleking. CS
3 Småland -> Smaaland. CS
16 Bohuslän -> Bahuslehn, Bohuslæn. CS (Does anybody know if this is a mutilation of the pre 1658 name?)


20 Trøndelag -> Trondheim. CS (I am a bit ambivalent on this, since while it was Trondheim in CS I am pretty sure it has been called Trøndelag in Danish at least until the loss of Skåneland. Do any of you have an idea here @Quaade @radiatoren?)

Don't have time for more now.



So the section on the old North mentions Trandheim and Trondelagen as the two equivalent names for Trøndelag back in the old North. As far as I remember lagen means law in Old Norse---i.e. Trondelagen being under the law of Tronde (whoever that is) (unless I am completely mistaken). An equivalent would be Danelagen.

Anyway it appears that Trondelagen was an archaic name in 1797 and Trondheim the then current one. Though when that changed I don't know.

I think having it as Trøndelag (or Trondelagen which appears more appropriate) when under Norway and Trondheim when under Denmark could make sense to show the change in naming convention. Though I don't know. It sure is a hard province name to decide on. Though if Trøndelag is used in Danish then I think it should be Trondelagen given that is how CS writes it. Though it is a good question if there actually was a vowel change in the name or CS wanted to write it in the old style with a miniscule e over the o instead of using an ø and the e then wasn't printed (he used the miniscule e version for some of the Swedish names for some bizarre reason). But given he has been dead in something like 200 years we obviously can't ask, so if he is used it should probably be Trondelagen with an o, since that was what he wrote.


Anyway lets continue with Scandinavia.

21 Hålogaland -> Nordlandene. CS (If somebody else is looking in CS too then this mentioned in the section about the Old North. By the way this should definitely be changed for Norwegian too. Whether it should be Nordlandene or Haalogaland (or possibly even Halogaland as in Old Norse) I don't know, but given å (the letter, not the sound) didn't exist in Norwegian until 1917, the letter å has no place in Norwegian names in game. The same goes for Danish names where å didn't exist as a letter until 1948.)
10 Jämtland -> Jæmtland. CS (Jämtland seems sketchy for the Norwegian name given Norway uses æ and not ä. @Sleepyhead wasn't there something about Jämtland being called something else in Norwegian?)
9 Hälsingland -> Hælsingeland. CS
11 Västerbotten-> Vesterboten. CS
27 Åbo -> Aabo= og Biørneborg=Lehn, Finland. CS
19 Österbotten -> Østerbotn, Uleaaborg Landshøvdingedømme. CS
31 Savolax -> Savolax, Kuopio. CS (With Kuopio only becoming noteworthy in the really late game, as CS also notes by saying it is a new town, I think keeping it as Savolax is the best of the two possibilities.)
1930 Åland -> Aaland. CS
4124 Karelia -> Karelen. CS

4123 Pirkanmaa. Now this one is a bit of a problem, since the area was part of Åbo and not in any way noteworthy given CS doesn't mention a thing about that part of the county. (Now I wonder how such an unimportant piece of land warranted a province...

)
Anyway due to it not being an independent administrative unit and being unimportant CS doesn't give any name. The Finnish name obviously is ruled out as a plausible name, since there is no way a Denmark having taken Finland would use Finnish names. The Swedish name is Birkaland which as far as I can see refers back to the Scandinavian word birk (to the Danes: it is the administrative unit, not the tree, we talk about here) which was a really old administrative unit independent of the shires. If I am correct that the etymology of Birkaland is land of the birks then the Danish name obviously would be Birkeland.
So lacking any sources on this except common knowledge about ancient administrative units I would propose Birkeland. And if that isn't used then using the Swedish Birkaland. While not correct it is much less wrong than using a Finnish name.

With regard to Lappland, Jokkmokk and especially Rovaniemi then I don't know. Lappland was divided into 6 chiefdoms when CS wrote (Åsele, Uleå, Piteå, Luleå, Torneå, and Kiemi); I think Kiemi is Kemi, but not certain. Using the names of these Lapp divisions (Aasele=Lapmark, Uleaa=Lapmark, Piteaa=Lapmark, Luleaa=Lapmark, Torneaa=Lapmark, Kiemi=Lapmark) for the three Lappland provinces (Lappland, Jokkmokk, Rovaniemi) would make sense, but I don't know which should be given what name.
Does anybody know this?
Rovaniemi might very well be Kiemi=Lapmark though, since CS mentions this Lapp division to be administered together with Österbotten. But I don't know.

Speaking of the Lapps then CS is a goldmine of statements which are funny due to being horribly un PC these days. This is written under Lappland: "Indbyggerne bekiende sig til den Christelige Religion, ere og forsynede med Kirker og Præster, men ere dog ikke frie for Levninger af grov Overtroe."

45 Lübeck -> Lybek, Lübeck. CS
44 Hamburg -> Hamborg. CS writes Hamburg, but that most likely is him using the German name due to the strong presence German had i the 1700s. As can be seen from this excert from the list of consumption for Tycho Brahe's wedding in 1503 it was called Hamborg 500 years ago just as it is today. The source is a site on Danish history run by Aarhus University.
"Item, 2. Tønner Hamborg Øll, Tønnen VI. Marck. "

296 Kaluga -> Kolugiske Statholderskab. CS
295 Moskva -> Moscau, Moskva. CS
294 Tver -> Tveerske Statholderskab. CS
308 Yaroslavl -> Jaroslavlske Statholderskab. CS
310 Novgorod -> Novgorodiske Statholderskab. CS
314 Vologda -> Vologda Statholderskab. CS
306 Nizhny Novgorod -> Nischgorodske Statholderskab, Nischnei=Novgorodske Statholderskab. CS





Additions on November 10th 2016:

4149 Kolding -> Koldinghus.
4141 Ditmarschen -> Ditmersken; alternatively Dytmersken.

Arguments found in this post.

 

[Wagonlitz]

I am a big proponent of having a uniform naming standard

This is gonna be me being a huge devils advocate, but it's to underline my points. Plus showcase how there's never been such a uniform standard. And I'd argue its impossible to have.
But let's take the stance it should he there.
I take it our queen then should be Queen Marie?
Similarly everybody named Maria should be renamed Marie?
Is it Karl III sitting on the British throne? And Charles I and II of Great Britain WERE called Karl in Danish back in the day, btw, so the uniformity would he to call him Karl, even if we ignored how Charles literally is a mutation of Karl, iirc coming through a Frenchification, but not certain if it was through French or something else.
There also is teh issue of Christian/Kristian, and how those actually are Kresten. And iirc Karsten is the German Kresten, but not 100% on that. So is the crown prince Crown Prince Kresten?

Again, was playing devils advocate here. Just wanted to point out how there's never been a uniform naming standard, and I would argue that there's much less one today than there ever has been, as in the past some degree of standardisation was sought, which isn't at all the case today. Rather the opposite is being lauded and promoted.
So asking for uniformity in game, when said uniformity never has existed, doesn't seem a good idea. And that's leaving aside how you handle cases like Aarhus, Uppsala, and Västerås, as to demand uniformity all three must have connected names, but what should it be then? Aarhus, or perhaps Aros, the one that it actually all derives from, but wouldn't it actually then be Áros? That one, btw, is me being a bit unsure. Think it would be Áros, but not 100%, hence the musing question.

 

[Roy Rogers McFreely]

Thanks for replying so fast! That's incredible given that the thread hadn't been active since 2016. And a very thorough reply as well. I'll try to do my best to respond in kind.

I presume that's a typo on your part. Otherwise it was typoed into the game files. What I suggested, from what I can tell by doing a brief skim back, was Hælsingeland. And that does make sense.

I have not delved into the game files (yet), so I'm just typing what I'm seeing in the game I'm currently playing (no mods, all DLC). I'm actually not even playing as Denmark, but I was pleasantly surprised to see them basically unite Scandinavia, and that got me to looking at their province names.

It seems like it has been typoed into the game, even though I made one too. It's Hælsingleland in the game. So it is definitely a typo, and not what you suggested. I would argue that Helsingland is overall better, though, as it's the Norwegian (bokmål) spelling and also seems more in line with Danish placenames (Helsingør etc.).

By the way - before I go on, I really have to emphasise that this was in no way intended as an attack of any sorts towards you. I can see that you've been very active. There are names in there that are clearly not your work, and as I said, I think it stems from subsequent map enlargement. Otherwise there's some very weird omisissions. For example "Tiohärad" is right there in the current ingame Danish realm I'm looking at. Alongside "Jæmtland", "Bahuslehn", "Smålenene", "Øster-Gøtland", "Aaland" and "Närke", to name a few. I'm not saying they're all wrong. I'm saying they're kind of a mess when put together like that. And I think this is a consequence of expanding the map after this thread died out (maybe - I haven't followed the DLC and patch development cycle that closely all the years).

As for å, then I am pretty sure none of my suggestions included that, as while Rasmus Rask suggested introducing it in, iirc, the 1820s, it wasn't actually introduced until Hartvig Frisch's orthography reform in 1948, and that one solely passed to get rid of capitalisation of nouns to make things less similar to German. Everything else in the reform was rider's, basically.
So having å would be exceedingly anachronistic.
And I just looked and I both said Aaland and Smaaland, so no discrepancy. Whether it's Smaaland or Smaalenene, which is more historically correct I can't say for certain. I presume you have a reason for saying Smaalenene, not Smaaland. Personally I'd say Smaaland, as it does, iirc, come out of the area being compromised of small lande, way back.

No, I actually agree. I do think "aa" is better in the context of the game. I just said that we need to do one or the other. Current patch has both, which is weird. But I absolutely support you here.

I'm not talking about Smaaland, though, as that seems to have been broken up into multiple provinces. I'm talking about a Norwegian province called Smålenene.

Keep in mind that æ and e are very similar sounds and a lot of places you used æ in the past you use e today. I don't see how that really is gonna confuse any Scandinavian, and non Scandinavians won't understand the names anyway, so to them it doesn't matter.

I'm not saying it's not legible or anything, I just think it'd be nice to follow some sort of common Danish standard.

As for boten and botn, then keep in mind that names can develop differently between places. Which of the two is older I don't know. Wouldn't be surprised if its botn, as Østerbotn speaks a very archaic Swedish.
I'm also not sure why it matters.

I, for one, think it should be Vesterbotten and Østerbotten. "-boten" suggests a long vowel, which is just weird and not how you would say it. "-botn" indeed seems quite archaic or Norse.
There is another problem with "-botn", however, and that is the fact that Vesterbotn and Østerbotn both already exist in northern Norway. In Porsanger, to be specific: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Østerbotn
So I think we should absolutely steer clear of that mixup.
As to whether it matters, I mean, that's a rather philosophical question. Why does anything matter?
I think it matters in the context of having congruency.

Is there also problems with people being named Olesen instead of Olsen? Or Kristiansen instead of Kristensen? Or worse yes, Christiansen instead of Kristensen? If not, where's the difference?
Should Uppsala be named Østre Aarhus? Västerås Vestre Aarhus, and Åhus Aarhus? If not, why not? All means the same, after all, estuary (åmunding). Which does make Aarhus Å, I.e. the estuary river, åmundingens å, a ridiculous name, but that's another talk.
My point here is names develop differently. Is that the case for Botn and Boten? I don't know. Solely pointing out that differences, even slight ones like Aarhus and Åhus, can be legit and meaningful. And hence shouldn't just be brushed over without a thorough evaluation of each one.

The Uppsala/Västerås/Aarhus thing becomes a little silly, I think. Sure, names can develop differently. In Swedish these are both uniformly "-botten", though, and I see no reason why they wouldn't also be that under Danish rule.

It is true, though, that far back orthography wasn't fixed, but rather could deviate based on how people actually spoke. Which circling back to the point about writing how we'd write today actually means we should write that way, as today there is emphasis on having foreign names be as true to their original, with many exonyms which just a couple generations ago were omnipresent and default, falling to the wayside. In some cases likely due to ignorance, granted, and it definitely far from always makes sense, but that's another discussion altogether.

If there are multiple sources with different orthography then it can be discussed which to use. Like we did for Trøndelag, iirc in this very thread. And no, the oldest source won't necessarily be the best. But it'll usually be way better than just going modern. Especially or you by doing as we would today don't even mean the exomyms.
For instance Reval. Was that one of the ones you found weird? Because calling it Talinn makes absolutely zilch sense at game start, neither for EU4 and especially not for EUV which is even further back.
Tallinn means Danish Castle. No way we'd have called it that ourselves... Plus, EUV gets back to around when we even still owned the place... Actually don't know what we called it. Lyndanisse is where Dannebrog fell from the sky, but don't know if the city itself ever was called that.
Or how about Danzig? Calling it anything else in the period would be extremely anachronistic. Gdansk, afaik, wasn't even a name for it until post 1945, but I don't speak Polish so can't say for certain. But for sure it'd never have been called that in Danish. Perhaps it far enough back had a different name, and then you could use that.

No, no, Reval is fine. I think I should've clarified that I was really mostly talking about provinces in Scandinavia proper.

As for Danzig/Gdansk, that is quite complex. The Polish name is not from 1945, it's in fact way older than the German name, and it was always called variants of Gdansk in Polish since around 1000. The problem being, however, that that would include stuff like "Kdanzk", "Gdanzc", "Danceke" and so on, if you go back far enough. So that is an obvious problem - which one do you choose? The Polish localisation in game is Gdansk, and I think that's very sensible. It's recognisable first and foremost.

But another complexity lies in the fact that the city changed hands multiple times during the game's timeframe (in addition to before and after), and that obviously affected how we would refer to it in Danish. Had it been under Polish control the whole time, I don't think you would ever know of it as Danzig. It does start as part of the Teutonic Order, though. Furthermore, I think there's a natural German bias in that German has been a language of royalty and nobility in Denmark. And it's a language that Danes are more familiar with. So yes, I think there's a solid case to be made for Danzig.

You seem to have missed that these things are for immersion. Also, the game hardly is a history book. It can teach you some things, no doubt about it, but it also gets a lot of stuff wrong, or deliberately railroads stuff like the Burgundian Inheritance which really was a fluke and 99 times out of 100 shouldn't happen, as it was so important and shaped the period. But that means you don't have historically accurate mechanics and causes underneath.

Also, history books which solely use current names honestly are bad. It can cause confusion, but also be misleading at times. Names matter, and names have meaning, even if it is masked today due to names morphing, jumping languages, etc.
E.g. using a Polish name for a major town in Hinterpommern in a history book covering pre 1945 can be outright misleading, as it implies the area was inhabited by Poles, or alternatively that the local language was that way. And it also makes it harder when looking through sources, or other history books which use period names, unless you know the older names.
And it really isn't hard to either first time the name is used note its modern name, if relevant, or include a map to show where it lies so people will know what it is today. As the game has a map, then that already is covered.

I agree that the game isn't a history book that gets everything right. It really can't be, because some things are simplified, some things are left out, some things are deliberately ahistorical for gameplay's sake (which must be why the Burgundian Inheritance is how it is - because it's fun?). Also things should deviate from playthrough to playthrough, which they do. Sometimes too much, sometimes too little, but that's another discussion, really.

Also, EU4 and 5, and PDX games grand strategies in general, really are about immersion a lot. And there having period accurate names matters a lot too.
And if you don't know some of them, then take it as an opportunity to learn. They e.g. can show you how the language evolved.
And let's not forget that EU4, and especially EU5, starts in what is called Middle Danish in English, and gammeldansk in Danish. A language state which really wasn't that different to olddansk at the start, I.e. what also is called Old Norse, or Danish Tongue, but by the end, around 1500 had changed a lot. Especially after the black death, in the 1400s, changed sped up.
During rhe reign of Valdemar the Great or Victory, forgot which of the two, Icelandic saga writers visited and in their writings they note they have no problems understanding Valdemar, but note he still uses the to them archaic v in front of r, e.g. in vred, Icelandic having shed that v very early and to this day doesn't have it.

And unless EU5 is fundamentally differnt to any previous title, then what'll have the most flavour, immersion, details, etc. will be the early game. And there it'll be horribly anachronistic and very bad to use modern terms unless it can be avoided. The language in the 1300s and 1400s was vastly different.
Like, we can easily read a text from 1599, but one from 1399 and most Danes would have a really hard time, even if you can work your way through a lot. But some will end up pure guesswork unless you know a bit about Old Norse or Middle Danish.

It's an interesting discussion. Is Danish anno 1444 (or 1337) the correct way (they'll be hard to find), or is it Danish anno 1821? The Danish capital in EU4 is currently called København. We should really at least call it Kjøbenhavn then, right? Or how about Kiøbnehafn, Kiøbenhaffn, or Køpmannæhafn?

As for Blekinge, then saying Blegind, which it most likely would have been today had it remained Danish, would he anachronistic. But whether or not the e should be there, actually can be meaningful. I don't know the history of the name and whether the end e is original or not. Will just note that it just as well can not be as be. Like how the e in konge, king, is a later addition. Which also is why its Kong Frederik, not Konge Frederik, btw. It comes from Old Norse where the nominative singular was konungR. When the case system for nouns fell mostly away the accusative generally was the surviving form, though some exceptions exist like kvinde, which is the genitive plural of kone, and hence the nominative R disappeared. Its why its Harald and Ragnhild, not HaraldR and RagnhildR today. The second syllable in konung was cut away and you ended up with kong. Then later an e was added as an analogues change, i.e. where it happened because it fit with the structure of other words.


So Uppsala should be Østre Aarhus? If not, why not?

It obviously wouldn't be Østre Aarhus, as Uppsala was already a well known settlement hundreds of years before the game starts. It might change in spelling, sure, but we have no real idea of what that might look like, to my knowledge. I definitely think it most likely that it would've stayed the same (or thereabouts), even under Danish rule. As such, Uppsala stays in my book.

Wouldn't that run into the issues you're raising for my post? E.g. how would such a list be made. Or would you just go look at the modern names, and if so would you then use the colloquially used ones or rhe official ones, which is another can of words. E.g. who actually says Nederlandene as opposed to Holland.
And it would be way way more anachronistic.



Which brings me to something I think you missed. I made this thread on a suggestion by Trin Tragula, a PDX employee, and it did lead to changes in the game, yes. But it was on the basis of a lot of discussion. Both in this thread and from where it spawned from. So it wasn't as much me saying change all this, as it was Trin suggesting that I suggested some historical names. So the discussion you say was missing, I'm pretty sure had happened internally already given I was asked to suggest historically appropriate names. And given how dynamic names, at least at the time, were made to be period accurate. Hence why you had all kinds of period accurate names in CK2 as well.
If you just want to go by modern names, then honestly there's no point in doing dynamic names. Just have all names be the same, as that is essentially the case these days, at least officially.



Pretty sure there was more I wanted to say, but I forgot. And time also ran and it's now way way later than intended, so I'll stop here for now.

No, I'm not saying to just use modern names everywhere. I remember way back in some other PDX game, you'd have a province that was so obviously suited for Ribe be called Esbjerg instead. And I'm pretty sure I argued that back then and helped get it changed. It's a long time ago, I don't fully remember. And I saw the Midtjylland debate here in this thread. We absolutely shouldn't use names that weren't used at all back then (or towns that weren't founded yet), but I would argue that the spelling doesn't necessarily have to be the most archaic form when multiple are available.

Anyway, no, I have not seen your original discussion. I am mostly reacting to what I see in the current build, having taken a long hiatus from EU4. And it's currently a happy mix of just about everything. You've got æ, ä, ø, ö, å, aa, modern spellings, really old spellings, typos, Swedish, and all sorts of things. That's really what I didn't understand.

Again, thanks for replying. I just wanted a constructive discussion about this, as I think it can definitely be improved (probably for EU5, since I doubt there's going to be many resources allocated for this kind of nitpicking in EU4).

 

[Wagonlitz]

Thanks for replying so fast! That's incredible given that the thread hadn't been active since 2016. And a very thorough reply as well. I'll try to do my best to respond in kind.

I still use the fora regularly. Actually saw your reply already Sunday, but only had time for a longer reply now.
Btw, did you see my devil's advocate post? Because I think it does in a good way highlight my point about how you never can have consistency in language. Like, is our queen named Marie and if not, why not, if we're to demand consistency.

By the way - before I go on, I really have to emphasise that this was in no way intended as an attack of any sorts towards you

I'm fully aware. Hope I didn't come across otherwise.
And hope I didn't come across poorly in my reply.

I would argue that Helsingland is overall better, though, as it's the Norwegian (bokmål) spelling and also seems more in line with Danish placenames (Helsingør etc.).

Why would the bokmål version be better? Also, you are aware that many place names have been switching between e and æ? E.g. Æbeltoft becoming Ebeltoft. And to this day Ægypten still is valid.
And eventyr used to be æventyr. Etc.
And you probably can find some placenames which still keeps the æ, btw. Would be very surprised if they don't exist.

I think it stems from subsequent map enlargement. Otherwise there's some very weird omisissions. For example "Tiohärad" is right there in the current ingame Danish realm I'm looking at.

Yeah, it is from when they split Småland, which was after this thread. Tiohärad would probably be something like Tiherred, though Tiuherad or similar is possible too. There also is the issue of Swedish having härad be both plural and singular, so it'd need to be found if it's meant in plural or singular in Swedish.
But it'd defintely be possible to come up with something.
But yeah, it's because it's a later change and hence never was part of this.

No, I actually agree. I do think "aa" is better in the context of the game. I just said that we need to do one or the other. Current patch has both, which is weird. But I absolutely support you here.

The reason å is used is that it's provinces which were added/changed after this thread.
Every single map change you'd need to update the dynamic names list, and honestly to be able to do it effectively you'd need to do it before launch, really. So i reality you'll always have some provinces which don't have dynamic names.

I'm not talking about Smaaland, though, as that seems to have been broken up into multiple provinces. I'm talking about a Norwegian province called Smålenene.

Oh right. Looking it up, then Smålenene is up around Oslo, right? If so then that too is a later addition, I'm pretty sure.

I'm not saying it's not legible or anything, I just think it'd be nice to follow some sort of common Danish standard.

You're missing my point. There is no common Danish standard.
Our queen isn't called Marie, and just look at all the women you know who're named Maria rather than Marie.
The Crown Prince isn't called Kresten.
And we no longer call Charles I and Charles II of Britain Karl I and Karl II, something we actually still did as recently as a couple generations back. So if anything we're becoming less and less standardised.

And if you want geographical names then just look at how some areas have kept the old syssel names, while others haven't.
Call Himmerland Himmersyssel in Himmerland and you'll find yourself danglign from a gallows.
Call Vendsyssel Vendland in Vendsyssel and you'll find yourself dangling from a gallows.
Himmerland, btw, IS Himmersyssel, the name just later changed.
There's no standards in language. Espeically not back in time.

Or take our names for numbers. Tyve means two tens and tredive means three tens, albeit very mutated by now. Fyrre, i.e. fyrretyve, means four tens. So should fyrretyve actually be called totyve, or to for short? If not, why not? There's no standardisation, or congruency as you call it later on, albeit not sure that term really can be used here, in having tyve mean ten in this word, and only in this word.

At the end of the day words are ways to convey information, and that's all they do. Their base meanings very much can and will get lost as they mutate and gain meaning on their own/become their own information. It's part of how languages evolve. Similarly for names. Where they come from doesn't really matter in most cases. And hence you'll have lots of cases where there's slight differences between similar names.
Is it lack of standardisation that Åhus isn't Århus?

"-boten" suggests a long vowel, which is just weird and not how you would say it.

And how do we know that wasn't how it was said?
And you can't just look at modern Swedish, as that's based on teh dialect from around Stockholm which can be very different from the dialects elsewhere in Sweden.

"-botn" indeed seems quite archaic or Norse.

I don't see a problem. The dialect in Østerbotten is very archaic, afaik.
Also, just the other day I learnt that Jæmtsk, i.e. the dialect of Jæmtland, literally still has the full case system of Old Norse! I.e three genders and four cases.
Speaking of, then some of the Danish dialects actually still have three genders too. In fact, IIRC and I could be wrong here, it was only a minority of dialects, if not just the ones about Copenhagen, whihc merged male and female into common gender. It's just that the Copenhagen dialect came to dominate.

There is another problem with "-botn", however, and that is the fact that Vesterbotn and Østerbotn both already exist in northern Norway. In Porsanger, to be specific: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Østerbotn
So I think we should absolutely steer clear of that mixup.

And? Firstly are those in game, and secondly even if they are does it then matter?
Plenty of places are called the same IRL. There's a Horsens in Vendsyssel, for instance.
And as mentioned Åhus, Västerås, Uppsala, and Aarhus has the same origin. And Eastern Bay is hardly an elaborate name, so of course multiple places will be called it.
Just look at Viborg. There's one in Finland too, and that one IS a province. Can't recall if the Jutlandic one is a province too. But if it is then you have two Viborg on the map. What people did IRL was that if two places with the same name were too close, you'd add northern, eastern, southern, western to the name. That's how you get stuff like Nørre Nebel, which only has the Nørre on maps/in bureaucracy, and it was to be able to see which Nebel you meant. Where Sønder Nebel is, I'm not sure, but must be in the general area. Further away and you'd not do it, as it'd be under a different administrative entity, i.e. a different len.

Also, btw, keep in mind that the Scandinavian naming custom was to name based on landscape name, rather than town name, whereas the German custom was to name based on name of main town. That's literally the diffrence between Sønderjylland and Slesvig. Sønderjylland was administered from Slesvig and when the dukes changed title from jarl to hertug they also started calling their duchy Slesvig, as there was orientation towards Germany. Though, the area still was called Sønderjylland and the name never forgotten, so you had the duchy of Slesvig in Sønderjylland. Which, surprise surprise, lies south of Nørrejylland, a name most people have forgot for some reason.
So Danish dynamic names generally should use landscape names if possible, not town names, as that's how it'd have been done, kinda, as later in the period there did start keeping in some town names, plus there's also always the issue of province size, which is a big one. As sometimes provinces don't line up well with landscapes. Or a landscape, like Småland, might get split and you need to come up with new names, names which might never have existed, but which you can approximate what it might have been in reality, had that administrative division existed.

I think it matters in the context of having congruency.

Not sure you're using that term well. In any case, it's impossible.

The Uppsala/Västerås/Aarhus thing becomes a little silly, I think. Sure, names can develop differently. In Swedish these are both uniformly "-botten", though, and I see no reason why they wouldn't also be that under Danish rule.

Why is it silly? It's literally a case of names not following a common standard.
Also, why would the Stockholm dialect have been deciding for what names would have been used under Danish rule?
Like, I really don't get that. Why wouldn't it rather be based on the Copenhagen dialect, or based on the local dialects.
You very much can't use modern Swedish for anything with regard to saying what a name would have been in Danish. You can to some degree use the names in the actual dialects, though.

As for Danzig/Gdansk, that is quite complex. The Polish name is not from 1945, it's in fact way older than the German name, and it was always called variants of Gdansk in Polish since around 1000. The problem being, however, that that would include stuff like "Kdanzk", "Gdanzc", "Danceke" and so on, if you go back far enough. So that is an obvious problem - which one do you choose? The Polish localisation in game is Gdansk, and I think that's very sensible. It's recognisable first and foremost.

But another complexity lies in the fact that the city changed hands multiple times during the game's timeframe (in addition to before and after), and that obviously affected how we would refer to it in Danish. Had it been under Polish control the whole time, I don't think you would ever know of it as Danzig. It does start as part of the Teutonic Order, though. Furthermore, I think there's a natural German bias in that German has been a language of royalty and nobility in Denmark. And it's a language that Danes are more familiar with. So yes, I think there's a solid case to be made for Danzig.

Ah. Must have mixed it up with Stettin, which would be the one that had the Polish name made up in 1945, then. My bad.
Anyway, this does very much show where Danzig comes from and why it always would be Danzig or very similar in Danish. It'd be interesting to see how it has developed in German, btw.

And no, even if it always had been Polish, it'd have been the same in Danish based on the old forms you posted above. kd is an unnatural sound, so it'd likely have been simplified down to d. gd, btw, clearly is a weakening of k, which generally weakens to g. We see that weakening in Danish too. E.g. compare Korm and Kud with the modern versions Gorm and Gud.
sg is another sound we don't have in Danish, or I at least can't say it. Rather I always get an i between the s and the g, when I try. Or I accidentally get an sk sound.
And that's the thing. Consonant combinations which don't exist in a language mean that you end up with a helping vowel in between. E.g. look at how English, after English lost the kn sound, has ended up adding an a to Knud and write is Canute, as seen in Canute the Great. So as we don't have the sg sound we'd add the i whether the Germans held the place or not.

Also, it seems like you're like most Danes and don't really realise the connection between langauges and how they develop. I apologise if I'm wrong.
Danish and German are very closely related, and were even closer back then. To a large degree the way German would transliterate a name would be the same way we would. And keep in mind that there were no standard ortographies back then, and most stuff was oral. There were no signs with the town name at the entrance, etc.
You'd ask the locals what the place was called, or you'd make up your own, though usually you'd ask locals. Then you'd transliterate what they told you into your language, i.e. try and pronounce it, but making the changes necessary to be able to pronounce it in your own language. So e.g. adding an i between s and g in an sg sound.
Languages don't live in voids.
The thing with taking names exactly like they are in a foreign language is a very modern thing, only has happened in the past 20 ish years, and even then people don't actually do it. If we go out on the street and ask random Danes, they'd get the pronunciation wrong on lots of place names, because they have absolutely no idea how to pronounce it. They can write it the way the language does, but are missing how the different lettes are pronounced differently. Which is what the old endonyms tried to fix. They tried to approach the pronunciation as close as possible, as mentioned, which invariably will mean the spelling will be different. As mentioned. Just how languages work.
(And even then the news just lift the English names, not the actual local names... In whihc case not using the Danish names is utterly moronic. Either use the endonyms or the local names. Using English endonyms is just stupid.)

Anyway, my point is that you didn't just lift the spellings, which also weren't standardised anyway. And especially for Scandinavia names would be based either on administrative stuff, in which case it'd be decided from Copenhagen, not based on what Stockholm had decided, or it'd be based on the dialects. Or if it was a well known place, based on how the place name had developed in the Copenhagen dialect since viking times.


Take Nebel. That'd be Nevl if you based it on what the local dialect calls it. Somebody conquering the area would rather have the name be Nevl than Nebel. And you can see that in the part of Sønderjylland which remains German to this day. The old, Danish names are written ways trying to allow Germans to pronounce the names in the local dialect, i.e. in Synnejysk, as it's called there. Hence why Sønder Løgum became Süder Lügum after 64. Actually not sure why Lyksborg because Glücksburg, as in whether it's because the g, or perhaps even a k sound, existed in the local dialect, or if it's the Germans needing it to approximate the l sound used and make it clear it's differnt from l sounds in other German names. Wouldn't be surprised if it actually had a g or k sound in front of the l in the local dialect, as the southernmost Sønderjyske dialects, which are now dead, were among the most archaic Danish dialects and e.g. had kept the musical accents rather than having stød. Angelsk and Fjoldemål being the two longest living of those southernmost dialects.

There's absolutely no reason to believe that the Danish names would 1:1 be the Swedish names. In fact, they almost certainly wouldn't be.

I agree that the game isn't a history book that gets everything right. It really can't be, because some things are simplified, some things are left out, some things are deliberately ahistorical for gameplay's sake (which must be why the Burgundian Inheritance is how it is - because it's fun?). Also things should deviate from playthrough to playthrough, which they do. Sometimes too much, sometimes too little, but that's another discussion, really.

The game should try as well as possible to simulate what actually drove historical events. That's how you get proper contrafactual history. The issue is that the Burgundian Inheritance was a fluke. The fact Charles the Bold was unable to get any surviving sons (forgot if he had some, who just died, or didn't get any at all) AND died during the siege of Nancy only 44 years old, was a total fluke. If you could rerun history, then 99 times out of 100, if not more, you'd not have it happen. Yet the fallout of that inheritance utterly shaped Europe to this day, as firstly it meant that there didn't end up being a strong kingdom between Germany and France. Burgundy de facto already was an independent kingdom and was centralising, hence the revolts Charles the Bold was crushign as he died besieging Nancy which had risen up in revolt. And the way Burgundy was split, which left both parties unhappy, spawned wars between Germany and France which ultimately led to WWII.

Hence people complained when they essentially never saw a Burgundian Inheritance, so the devs railroaded it in, albeit made the inheritance slightly dynamic. So no, it's not in because it's fun. It's in because people complained about always having a strong Burgundy survive, something which WAS the realistic outcome. It's just that most people think that what happened IRL is the realistic outcome, even when it was extremely unlikely to happen at the time.

There's no such thing as things deviating too much. If anything it's too little that's a problem, as that can suggest railroading, if it keeps happening.
All you can do, as menioned, is to make mechanics which simulates the underlying causes for various events and movements. That's how you do contrafactual history properly.

It's an interesting discussion. Is Danish anno 1444 (or 1337) the correct way (they'll be hard to find), or is it Danish anno 1821? The Danish capital in EU4 is currently called København. We should really at least call it Kjøbenhavn then, right? Or how about Kiøbnehafn, Kiøbenhaffn, or Køpmannæhafn?

That is a really good question. Given that most people only play the first part of the game, and given how early game is what gets by far teh most dev time as well, then having it be as close to game start, so 1337 for EU5, would be best. Obviously that's won't be easy, and in some cases you may need to try and construct what it'd have been, possibly based on later names for it. E.g. some place in the New World, albeit then you need to keep in mind the above mentioned thing with trying to approach how the locals pronounced things, and then it's probably better to use period names for it. So if it's a place that wasn't really known until the 1700s, then 1700s names, as unless somebody is an expert in the local languages of that area, which might even be dead by now!, then good luck constructing what those areas would have been called, had they been discovered in the 1300s, or even 1400s.

Ideally you'd have names change as time passes, e.g. changing every 100 years or so (more than that and it'd be too much work), but given how it's already a lot of work to get dynamic names as it is, then that obviously is a pipe dream.

As for what København should be, then that'd be based on a discussion. Probably not Kjøbenhavn, honestly, as think that's too modern, though don't know exactly when that became the spelling. Could even be it'd have to be Havn in 1337, or whatever Havn was then. Haffn, perhaps?
At the end of the day which name to use, in case of multipel being avaialbe, would be down to discussion. And in some cases you may take a version from say 1470 rather than one from say 1350, if the 1470 one is better based on the discussion. You most likely can't set in stone that you take names from year x. Ideally you'd do it, but it's almost certainly impossible to do, plus the game spans centuries so not even sure it actually is ideal at the end of the day.
Most places would not have that problem, though. Most places would only have one Danish name, albeit perhaps a couple slightly different spellings due to how orthography wasn't standardised until relatively recently. Or not have one at all, and then you'd need to try and construct a realistic one.
Like take Frederiksnagore, our forgotten* colony in India. It's up around Calcutta, in case you don't know it, and is far away from Trankebar. Anyway, say we had got a colony there already in 1400. What would it have been called then? For sure not Frederiksnagore, as we hadn't even had any kings named Frederik by then, plus Frederik, I think, is a German name, albeit I haven't looked it up so I could be wrong and it has Norse roots. It's perfectly possible, just don't recall ever coming across a Frederik in the pre Oldenborg times. Snagore I don't know what means, or whether the s is a genitive and and hence it's Frederik's Nagore, and in which case what nagore then means, or if it perhaps even is a local place name. See, that's what I mean with how it can be impossible to backdate some names. In the case of Frederiksnagore I'd very much argue to call it that, as that was the name we used for it during the game period, and would be more realistic in any case than any name we tried to construct, unless somebody was an expert in whatever language was spoken in the area in the 1300s AS WELL as being an expert in what language was spoken in the aera in the 1600s. Or we had two experts. But we'd need an expert in both to be able to figure out where nagore came from and how it had developed. Assuming it is of local origin, of course.

So yeah, as with a lot of things it depends, but I would argue for having the names be from the early game period if possible, but when not possible then late game is better than nothing.
Which also is what you'd see in my suggestions in this thread. I used late game names mostly, but did add early game names for the cases where I knew them. Which, admittedly, wasn't that many places as 1) I knew way less back then and 2) I also never spent even remotely as much time as it'd be needed to really dig into the early game names and get them for everywhere.

*well, the actually forgotten one is the Nicobar Isles, though granted we never really did anything there at all. Even the national museum has forgotten that one, and they do mention Frederiksnagore.

It obviously wouldn't be Østre Aarhus, as Uppsala was already a well known settlement hundreds of years before the game starts. It might change in spelling, sure, but we have no real idea of what that might look like, to my knowledge. I definitely think it most likely that it would've stayed the same (or thereabouts), even under Danish rule. As such, Uppsala stays in my book.

And the settlement was called Østre Aarhus. Or, well, Austr Áros or whatever it was in Old Norse. Though, it is a special case, I'll admit, as the change to Uppsala is because of the archbishopric being founded there. But without that, it'd have been Østre Århus or similar today, albeit looking at Västerås then perhaps Österås, assuming Västerås has the same dialect, which I don't know if it does.

And based on what arguments do you say it'd have stayed the same under Danish rule? Because if we use the weakenings which pretty universally happened in the Copenhagen dialect, and hence in what we'd call standard Danish today (note in the other dialects the weakenings might not have happened, or might have run even further), then we'd most likely have seen a p to b weakening, and we'd not have seen the addition of the second p that the Stockholm dialect later added to it. Given how names with similar roots have evolved in Danish then sala would have been sale, most likely. So at the very least we'd probably have something like Ubsale.
Just likely how Blekinge likely would have been Blegind, had it remained Danish.
Of course the above evolutions would not necessarily have happened fully during the game period, so some middle stage might have been what'd have beeen used during the game period.

So yeah, what's your argument for Uppsala having been written thus under Danish rule?

No, I'm not saying to just use modern names everywhere. I remember way back in some other PDX game, you'd have a province that was so obviously suited for Ribe be called Esbjerg instead. And I'm pretty sure I argued that back then and helped get it changed. It's a long time ago, I don't fully remember. And I saw the Midtjylland debate here in this thread. We absolutely shouldn't use names that weren't used at all back then (or towns that weren't founded yet), but I would argue that the spelling doesn't necessarily have to be the most archaic form when multiple are available.

Btw, if we're talking the EU era, whihc I presume you mean as Esbjorg wouldn't be that bad for Vicky, even if Ribe still would be better, then it'd rather be Riberhus or perhaps even Riperhus, albeit don't know if Ribe was Ripe, albeit in Latin it's Ripensis or something like that, IIRC, suggesting it was Ripe and it does follow the p to b weakening.
Similarly to how it's not Kolding, but Koldinghus. Albeit, Koldinghus was deemed too long for the size of the province and Kolding was used, so the devs might have done similar with Riberhus, albeit Ribe is shorter than Kolding, so perhaps not.
But lets say Riberhus is used, but Koldinghus is deemed too long by the devs, as it is a small province, so they write it Kolding. Now you have a lack of standardisation, due to province size. Does that then mean it can't be Riberhus, because it's not Koldinghus? And if not, won't that then give that lack of standardisation you mentioned?
My point here is that it's impossible to ever get full standardisation, at least not unless you want to give up any semblance of accurate names and e.g. go from Riberhus to Ribe, even though Riberhus was used in game.

You've got æ, ä, ø, ö, å, aa, modern spellings, really old spellings, typos, Swedish, and all sorts of things. That's really what I didn't understand.

That, sadly, just is the reality of dynamic names. If you want to fully avoid it, you must scrap dynamic names. Unless somebody spends time every single patch updating all dynamic names for a specific culture, it'll always have stuff that's lacking. That stuff can then be changed through suggestions when found, but it's impossible to ever have it be 100% consistent. In fact, even before dynamic names it never was, as the English names used sometimes were from different languages, so you'd have a mismash of different language province names in some areas.

Again, thanks for replying. I just wanted a constructive discussion about this, as I think it can definitely be improved (probably for EU5, since I doubt there's going to be many resources allocated for this kind of nitpicking in EU4).

And I thank you for reopening this. It's always a discussion worth having.
And I too want a constructive discussion. Hope I've not given off an air of not wanting that.



Hope I didn't miss anything.