This is as close as I've been to Vikings -- seen from the waterfront boat tour in Copenhagen
I sold two stories to an anthology of scandinavian-inspired folk tales, but one of them was obviously set in a non-scandinavian region – not surprising, since in my fantasy world there is no scandinavia at all, nor any other real-life countries. ‘Selanto’ and ‘Kasidora,’ the editor pointed out, are not really scandinavian-sounding place names. Couldn’t I replace them?
I know two words of Danish, and that’s it — and naming the two cities ‘excuse me’ and ‘thank you’ would probably not suffice (let alone that folks’ behavior in the story suggests that they don’t know those words). So off I went to the internet and found a Viking place name generator. I picked out a few that seemed as if they’d sound right with a little tweaking, googled the results to make sure they weren’t the names of celebrities or well-known obscenities, and sent them off. But man, what an uneasy feeling it gave me! I didn’t know a thing about what these names meant. I didn’t even know the language well enough to identify the word roots I should be looking up.
Sure enough, one of them meant ‘Valley Lake,’ and there is no lake in the valley I’m writing about. The other meant nothing, so far as my norse-speaking editor can tell. So we go into round two of creating the names.
It’s sort of fun — but that’s because I have someone helping me who knows the language. If I were on my own I’d be too uneasy about the possible hidden meanings to enjoy it at all. This is why I write fantasy instead of historical fiction, and name so many of my characters after fish.
