About strait names
Definite articles and bodily metaphors give these waters their menace, with results like "The Bottomless Neck", "The Englehead Mouth", and "The Infernal Strait" sounding charted yet dangerous. Drop one between two landmasses on a nautical map and trade routes, blockades, and shipwreck lore practically write themselves. Surname-based forms such as "The Pass of Plater" suggest a captain who did not survive the crossing.
How strait names are built
Three templates on a 22-entry noun bank. One pairs "The" plus an adjective from a 253-entry bank with the noun (The Bottomless Neck), one appends "of" and a two-fragment coined place after the noun (The Stretch of Duparhartslea, The Strait of Hatcarrholt), and one fronts the coined place before the noun (The Alvelden Narrow, The Englehartslea Mouth).
The Strait of Hatcarrholt
Strait + Hat + carrholt
the "The noun of place" form, channel noun plus joined fragments
The Bottomless Neck
Bottomless + Neck
adjective plus channel noun
The Alvelden Narrow
Al + velden + Narrow
joined fragments fronting the channel noun
Naming notes
The noun bank is small at 22 entries and sets the channel word, so it recurs, while the 253-entry adjective bank and the fragment banks (536 and 454 entries) carry the variety. The coined-place fragments are joined by the template rather than stored whole. The output capitalizes the first character.
Questions about strait names
- How are strait names constructed?
- Three templates pair a channel noun from the 22-entry noun bank with an adjective or a two-fragment coined place.
- Why does the channel word repeat?
- The noun bank holds only 22 entries, so words like Strait, Neck and Belt recur while the 253-entry adjective bank and the larger fragment banks vary more.
- Will straits match my rivers and lakes?
- They can. The coined-place fragment banks (536 and 454 entries) are the same shared fragment pools used by the river and lake generators, so a strait and a river can share a fragment.