How did you come up with your nation names?

[Kraylandia]

I think the title is pretty self explanatory. During my time on NationStates, I've seen some rather interesting usernames and was curious as to how you all came up with them?

Mine is obviously from the Kray Twins, two gangster brothers from London during the 60's, since I pretty much love everything gangster related.

[Tyrinth]

This question gets asked a lot, huh?

It's just something I made up during my early high school years that I use for games like this.

[Bill Cosby Island]

It amused me.

[Dahon]

The human name Hetalia nation-tan for Japan, Honda Kiku -- plus the Tagalog word for "leaf", which is "dahon".

[Wallenburg]

I needed a name to fill a big slot in a Minecraft fan fiction map about 3 years ago. Originally called "Greater Yyermany", I decided to break it up into smaller countries, one called "Wallburg". That sounded stupid, so I later changed it to "Wallsburg" and then to "Wallenburg". The nation is very militaristic, so I thought them having lots of walls would be appropriate.

[Argostania]

Well, the name I use online is Stephen Argus (which uses my real first name) so I first wanted to call me nation Argusstan. I decided this didn't look good so I played around with words until I arrived at Argostan.

I then decided Argostania would sound cooler so that's that then.

[Old Tyrannia]

The name itself was inspired by both Tyrannosaurus rex and Warhammer 40K's tyranids. I like dinosaurs and was a tyranid player. Apart from that, I just liked the name. My first nation was New Imperial Tyrannia. I can't recall why Tyrannia was "New" or "Imperial." Old Tyrannia was made the same day as a puppet and later became my main account when I misplaced NIT's password.

[Immoren]

Borrowed it from Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms setting.

[Kraylandia]

The name itself was inspired by both Tyrannosaurus rex and Warhammer 40K's tyranids. I like dinosaurs and was a tyranid player. Apart from that, I just liked the name. My first nation was New Imperial Tyrannia. I can't recall why Tyrannia was "New" or "Imperial." Old Tyrannia was made the same day as a puppet and later became my main account when I misplaced NIT's password.

Ah, very nice.

[Idzequitch]

I put random syllables together until I found a combination I liked. No special significance, just a random collection of syllables with uncommon letters.

[Forsher]

Because this is a name I came up with a long time ago. I am not sure why I did then. Probably just the first combination of things that sounded okay and were unique (so no need for the old Mike101 vs Mike the original thing... cue link to the xkcd I read that from but I can't find it).

[Luziyca]

Derived it from Lusatia's Sorbian names.

[Benxboro]

It was a made-up name for a clone from Star Wars: The Clone Wars and I added -boro on because it was symphonic.

[Internationalist Bastard]

My main political stance is Internationalism. A lot of people hate me as a result. Hence, Bastard

[Ifreann]

The stars whispered it to me.

[Dumb Ideologies]

The stars whispered it to me.

I hope one of the stars wasn't Jimmy Saville.

[Saint Kanye]

"Saint" to sound legit, "Kanye" to be unique.

[Boltainia]

Usain Bolt - the fastest man in the world

[Havenburgh]

Haven: a place of safety, a sanctuary.
Burgh: a semi independent town

And that should explain itself

[Tsaraine]

The Two Towers had just come out in the movies and, inspired by the wide open spaces of Rohan, I wanted a land full of nomadic dudes on horses. Why I dunno, I don't even like horses. Anyway in one of Tamora Pierce's fantasy novels there's a country called Saraine (itself probably named after Sarai, capital of the Golden Horde) which is ruled by a bunch of dudes on horses. And we'd been studying the October Revolution in school, so when I came to make my first nation I stuck them together and made Tsaraine.

[Kaitjan]

Needed something sounding vaguely East Asian. Said some strange words, combined some letters and out came Kaitjan.

[Kalosia]

On NS my first nation's name was Mediterranea. Upon coming back to NS after years and seeing that it was taken by someone else, I went with a shorter Mediterra. But then I decided that my nation needed a revamp. I literally looked up random words in foreign languages (mainly Latin and Greek) and settled for Calosia. And then that was taken. So here we are today.

I also have puppets. Fromulya was my first nation name created overall, from "pra-" (first) and "mulya" (noble), and then modified into a form that would not have transliteration problems in Arabic (??? idk i made this when i was like in 5th grade)

Skanden was just... well it kinda sounds generic so I don't think I need to explain (it's from Scandinavia + Sweden but Scanden was taken)

Saviera was from a school project lol, originally it was called Xaverro (after someone named Xavier apparently) but doesn't Saviera sound better?

[Ermarian]

This one's an old, old name from the fan-verse of an old video game series.

Some of my others: Parth (the very first nation I made, late December 2003) was the name of one of the fantasy worlds I made up that never got beyond a rough coastline sketch.

Pralgrad, Bahssikava, Upper Avernum and Vantanas are canon place names from the video game setting, Aeruillin was a place name from Santharia. There are a couple others, but these are the ones without nonsense names.

[AiliailiA]

I wanted a nation name which was a palindrome so it had to start and end with the same letter. I guessed that A was the most common first letter in the names of real nations (turns out I was wrong about that: S is the most common, while B, C and M all are more common than A) and also that many nation names end in A (turns out I was right about that: some 32% of nation names end in A, more than twice the number which end in N and more than N, E and S combined).

Of nations seated in the UN, nine have names that begin AND end with A: Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda (twice!), Argentina, Armenia, Australia, and Austria.

Among the other letters beginning and ending real nation names, there are two C's and they're both a bit cheaty: Central African RepubliC, and Czech Republic. There are four S's: Saint Kitts and NeviS, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles and Solomon Islands. And that's all, no other nations have names beginning and ending with the same letter.

My nation name, though quite long, only has three letters in it. Three A's, two L's, and four I's. If you find it hard to spell, remember that every second letter is an I. It's ALALA padded out with I's.

[Shamhnan Insir]

A beautiful corner of the world. It's a real place on a wee island off the coast of Scotland, hidden away out beyond where even brazen people would walk from the beaten track.

There's a ruin there, easily 200 years old, but still as solid as when it must have been built. I'd someday like to make it my home.