Choosing a name for the world was an interesting experiment that involved not just finding something different, unique, and appealing, but also ensuring that we could get the URL for the domain and (hopefully) not infringe on an existing trademark.
When the world was in the sci-fi genre, we kicked around Breach, Interval, Verse, and several other single-word names. It quickly became clear that this was a losing battle, as the domain would likely be registered (unless we went with a word not to be found in the dictionary, which neither Tony nor I were excited about) or we would have to append something to the URL, thereby reducing SEO efforts and most likely having our prospective audience wind up at a domain for a completely unrelated company/product.
When we switched to fantasy, we knew it would have to be a multiple-word name, and we played around with different ideas. By April of 2008, we had created a good portion of the world, though we were still searching for a name for the character that would become Emperor Gallidon. We also knew runes would play a pivotal part in the world. As it happened, deciding on the name of the emperor and the name of the world began to converge until we knew they were two sides of the same coin.
We spent a few weeks agonizing or ignoring the issue, until one night the name “Gallidon” popped into my head after a particularly depressing brainstorming session between Tony, Andy, and me. A couple of quick searches revealed almost no hits for this word, and the domain was available for registration. What had been a burden weighing on us for weeks was suddenly solved, and the name resonated with all three of us.
I registered gallidon.com and runesofgallidon.com, set up email accounts for us, and reveled in how surreal it was to have this incredibly important piece of the world fall into place. All we had to do now was finish building the world. And a website. And generate content. And market the site…
Up next: Part 8 – Yours, Mine, Ours