What do you name your cities?

[1]

Does anyone stick with the set names? I almost always name my own cities. I like to name my cites after the nearby terrain. So I end up with... WheatyWhales, or Ironcows. Or if I'm particularly mad at an AI, I'll name a city "Up Yours" then name a city under it "Bizmark". Buahaha. The possibilities are endless....

What's really funny is watching the Aztecs capture "Aztecs Stink" city, then go on their marry lil way.

[Aeson]

I usually end up naming all my cities after the Civs mythological characters, places, and events. Other times I just open up an atlas and pick out interesting names from modern day countries in the same general area. I can't stand having "New" and numbered cities.

When I capture an AI city that has built a wonder I usually rename the city to where the wonder was historically located. Also cities which claim resources get descriptive names. Ivory Coast always seems to show up somewhere.

In a recent game I settled a city on a far away island just as there was a major barbarian uprising nearby. I had about 5k in gold saved up for upgrading and no time to build any defense. I renamed the city "Trojan Horse" and gave it to the Greeks...

[Jethro83]

I don't really see much need to name my own cities. I'd rather actually focus on the other aspects of the game. When playing, there's too much on your plate to be worrying about naming cities.

However, it is sometimes good to rename cities that you capture (like one time as the Americans, I took the Persian city of Pasgardae. I was so impressed with its placement that I named it Lincoln, dedicated to the greatest president America ever had; and I made it into the capital, as it was in the centre of the small continent I was on). But at that time, it is usually the end of a war, a brief period of rest which gives the time to think about renaming the settlements conquered.

[Skanky Burns]

When building my own cities, I just use the default names.
When capturing other cities, I normally don't care about them enough to rename them - after all they are only producing 1 shield 1 gold each turn.

[Giovanni August]

I usually stick with the game city-names as long as i don't have any "new whatever". once it is like this i usually point my finger somewhere in the world atlas and name my city after it. But i must say I had too many time the "Pacific Ocean" city

Saluti

[Dis]

well I don't always do this. when I'm japan I keep many city names. at least the major ones.

when I play the aztecs I rename the cities to cities in my region of the U.S. Las Vegas, Mesquite, Pahrump, Needles. Laughlin, you get the picture.

This allows me to relate to how the cities are arranged on the map, and it allows me to easily locate a city.

[Harovan]

I can't stick with the names in the game, when playing Germans, because they are awfully wrong spelled. So I either use a good city name mod, or I name my cities manually, which ends up, that I 30 times get proposed the city of "Heidelburg" which simply doesn't exist.

Usually I name my First-class-cities (1 step away from palace) after the biggest German cities. I try to name coastal cities and interior cities correctly, my Munich (München) never can build a harbor, while my Hamburg is always a coastal city. Same with cities in mountains and plain land, although this doesn't always fit properly, when in combination.

When I raze cities and build my own at the original place, I either name it after the original, or (yes!) I add a "New...", which in that case makes sense.

When I play a foreign civ (which often happens), I usually accept proposed city names, sometimes I use a city name mod.

I never name cities after resources in my own games, although it happened in our French succession game (IIRC Ore Hills was mine).

[Tingkai]

I think naming cities is part of the fun of civ.

I also take the approach that dissident uses of naming cities within a region based on actual geographic location (e.g. all cities in one area might be named after Western Canadian cities).

One thing I can't stand is having dozens of cities named New XXX.

[Antonin]

I rename all cities I capture from the AI, to emphasize to the conquered populace that a new day has dawned and that they'd better just forget about the old regime.

[muppet]

Kermit. Piggy. Cookie.

[Thrawn05]

If I post some of the names that I use in my cities, Ming would send me for a two week vacation to you know where.

[Carver]

First, I usually exhaust the default names. Then I start naming then after female celebrities. If I still need more I resort to geographic names: North Point, Southern Isle, East Beach...etc. When taking AI cities I almost always retain the same name. How could anyone rename cities like Moscow, Kyoto, London or Paris? Even the Soviets didn't dare rename Moscow like they did other Soviet cities. Although I like Sir Ralph's technique of razing AI cities and renaming them New X.

Lord Azreal, naming cities is a lot of fun for some of us. I wish we could name ships as we could in Empire , that classic game that blew my high school GPA.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Carver
First, I usually exhaust the default names. Then I start naming then after female celebrities.

I used to too in some of my other games. Then I got bored of it. But I hear ya!

Civ3 is blowing my grades in Calc 1. At least I'm kicking butt in my other classes still.

[Spec]

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[Lee Johnson]

I have a tradition going back to MOO days, that I name my cities/colonies after the elements of the periodic table, in order of founding or capture. Therefore, my capital is always Hydrogen (unless I move it later.)

I'm good for the first twenty-two elements; after that, I usually end up having to peek at a table to remind myself which ones come next. Needless to say, I don't normally build enormous number of cities.