About river names
Diminutives matter in these results: "Crystal Brook" names small water, while "la Rivière Marvers" and "l'Affluent Ondoyant" scale up to rivers and tributaries. The size words let you build a believable watershed, brooks feeding affluents feeding the river a city sits on. Sketch the water network before placing towns, since settlements follow rivers and not the reverse.
How river names are built
River names use five templates built on flowing-water nouns. One pairs a word with a noun (Crystal Brook), another fuses a coined opener before the noun (Bona + ardgill + Rill gives Bonaardgill Rill), and French forms front a generic before a descriptor or a fused coined tail (le Cours d'Eau + Pontarl + invelles gives Le Cours d'Eau Pontarlinvelles; les Torrents + Cavaillo + ozanne gives Les Torrents Cavailloozanne).
Le Cours d'Eau Pontarlinvelles
French generic le Cours d'Eau plus a fused coined tail Pontarl + invelles
Crystal Brook
the word Crystal plus the noun Brook
Bonaardgill Rill
fused coined opener Bona + ardgill plus the noun Rill
Naming notes
The English water-noun bank (10 entries) runs from Brook and Rill up to Canal and Channel, while a 12-entry French bank supplies generics like le Gave, la Crue and les Affluents, so the noun you keep sets the scale of the waterway. The two coined-fragment banks (536 and 266 entries) are shared with the lake generator. The names are generated under a river label.
Questions about river names
- How are river names constructed?
- Five templates pair a flowing-water noun from a 10-entry bank with a word or a fused coined opener, or front a French generic from a 12-entry bank onto a descriptor or a fused coined tail.
- Can one generator name both creeks and great rivers?
- Yes. The noun sets the scale: Brook and Rill read small, Torrents and Cours d'Eau read major, so the noun you keep decides the size.
- Will rivers match my lakes?
- They can. The two coined-fragment banks are shared with the lake generator, so a river and a lake can share a root.