Where can I find medieval city names?

[Hendrik the Great]

I'm still working on my next scenario and now I've come to placing cities. Which wasn't such a problem. However I want to give them the appropiate medieval names to make the scenario more realistic.
I do have material on the time but it is all in german and I'd like to give them the fitting english name.
The question now is if anybody knows where I can find those names.

Hendrik the Great

[Paul Hanson]

Hendrik, maybe you could post some of these names up on the forum and people could help you with it like that. You never know, maybe someone here has the answers you need!

[ragged-gothic]

There are several good historical atlases available in English; I find that ~the Times Concise Atlas of World History~ is reasonable for household use, though there are better (but more expensive) ones. I don't know if where you are located, such atlases are available, either in a public or a university library. Otherwise, Paul Hanson's suggestion is a good one.

[valmont]

Hendrik, I could probably help if I knew the specific time period. Medieval is a long time, more than 1000 years. And do you need names for English cities or for other civs as well? More info, man!

Meanwhile, here's a page full of medieval & renaissance history links that might help:
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ33.HTM
[This message has been edited by valmont (edited October 29, 1999).]

[Hendrik the Great]

Back I am.

The time period is about 1200-1450.
The entire thing takes place in south-east europe. Mainly Greece, Turkey, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and the southern part of Serbia also Cypres, Georgia and the coastal region of Syria.
To be precise the scenario is about the Byzantine Empire and the last 250 years of it. Most of the units are finished by now, rules editing is at least half way, events have been started, other graphics are also almost finished(maybe in 3-5 days), been placing cities the last week when I thought of the city names.
I know the names of the most important ones like Constantinople, Adrianople(Edirne) and the most other major ones. The problem are cities like Lülebürgaz and Kütahya( those are their german names btw as they are in my atlas)

I will also post all the ones I need if necessary like Paul Hansn proposed.
I just have to get all of them together first.

Hendrik the Great

[Hendrik the Great]

You wanted to know the cities? Fine.
Lets start with a few from Albania and Greece:

Agrinion, Janina, Berat, Trikala, Patras, Phrygos, Kalatama, Chalkis, Amfipolis, Komotini, Kandia, Chandia and Ierapetra.

There are plenty more but I think its best if it is done piece by piece.

Thanks in advance.

Hendrik the Great

[Michael Daumen]

I say stick with the names you find. We Anglophones can figure things out.

[valmont]

The problem is there is no one method of transliterating names from other languages into English. In the nineteenth century, English scholars used the letter C ubiquitously in their renderings of Greek names. This led to pronunciations that don't resemble the originals, since Greek apparently doesn't use a soft C. The rendering Alcibiades encourages the pronunciation "AL-si-BYE-uh-deez", but apparently it should sound more like "al-ki-vee-AH-dehs".

So you have to decide which kind of rendering you want to use. For a historical scenario, you might actually want to use older versions of place names. And your decision might be influenced by which civilization occupies the city at the start.

That said, I found an online atlas that seems to use more up-to-date renderings:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/M...ope/Greece.GIF

Here's what I found:

Agrinion = same
Janina = Ioannina
Berat = same
Trikala = same
Patras = Patrai
Phrygos = Pirgos
Kalatama = Kalamai
Chalkis = Khalkis
Amfipolis = Amfisse
Komotini = same
Kandia = Khania (city on island of Crete)
Chandia = Xanthi (city to the west of Komotini)
Ierapetra = not found

[Hendrik the Great]

Valmont, thanks a lot!

It really helped to get those city names.
Furthermore, the online atlas is very helpful! I've searched around the site a little and actually found medieval maps of southeast europe with the names they had at that time.

Thanks again!

Hendrik the Great