How did you name your island?

[TheRealWC]

So, I'm about to reset my island and do something new, but I don't have a name picked out yet. My old island names were either just kind of random (Polaris) or words in other languages (Escapada, spanish for getaway). I'm kind of at a crossroads because I don't exactly have a main theme picked out for this island nor do I really know what I should name it. All I know is I want something that is, or at least seems, unique.

So, how did y'all come up with names for your islands? Was it tied into the theme you were going for, or was it just related to something you enjoy or has a personal connection to you? Or was there another method you used to pick out a name?

 

[nightglow]

I just wrote short nature words down and paired them together, as long as they fit the 10 character limit, and chose from that.
I reset my island a few days ago and ended up choosing RippleReef. However Sunkiss was almost chosen. (It reminded me of these ice cream popsicle things called

Spoiler: Starkiss

)

 

[CylieDanny]

It was originally susposed to be a horror themed island, that was connected to my side island in a complete lore and story behind it. Connected to my second island

Gemella, which was designed as a replica to my main island, the villagers all being the same animals as my main island.

Fugiree: Marshal
Gemella: Sylvania

Then the same species as all my island. Gemella is a more bright island, Fugiree is more dank, and more forgotten feel.

So i made them both identical. But one was more bright then the other. It was a really intense project I dropped it. I had to keep going back and fourth between islands and I had too much going on in life..

But sometimes concider doing it agsin. But I also kinda forgot my main idea. Though i wrote it down in a notebook I cant find.

Look up the definitions if you wanna see what both mean.

Fugiree then Gemella.

 

[-Blue-]

Honestly I just wanted a better name than the one I used for my New Leaf town. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it wasn't very original either. I just named it Nintendo. It was a bunch of different themes and ideas for stories I made up and Nintendo references and sometimes people would ask me if it was the official Nintendo town lol.

For NH I didn't know what I wanted my island to be named right from the start. I just knew I didn't want to go the route I did with NL. I wanted something nice sounding, but not really way out there. Something that was common/natural, but also endearing. So I finally came up with Cedar Cove. And yes there are a lot of cedar trees.

 

[Olimar]

There's a Florence + the Machine song called "St. Jude" with the lyric "Saint Jude - the patron saint of the lost causes." I wanted to use that as inspo for an island of "lost causes" i.e. villagers that most people do not like. I love how St. Jude sounds as an island name and haven't regretted it at all.

 

[Xara]

i named my island “axolotl” after seeing it in an island name idea thread that an old friend of mine made. i was originally going to name it something like “seafoam” (which i 1000% would’ve regretted lol), but i liked “axolotl” a lot more. i thought it was perfect since i adore axolotls, and dr. shrunk is one of my favourite npcs. ☺

i didn’t have a cohesive theme in mind for my island back then (i still don’t), so i didn’t choose a name that ‘matched’. i just wanted one i liked. it ended up working out since my goal is for my island to be centred around things that i love and that make me happy, and axolotls make me happy. i still love my island name 3 years later, and don‘t regret choosing it at all (a first for me)!

 

[Croconaw]

My island was named Arizona. Complete opposite of a desert, but whatever.

 

[Tylerhelt14]

Mine is named after my hometown of Wellsboro Pennsylvania

 

[ConfusedDad]

My brother and I fought for an hour and finally came up with Moon Isle.

 

[Foreverfox]

For my first island, Woxton, I came up with that from family nicknames. My husband’s nickname is wolf, mine is fox, and our son is obviously wox, because wolf+fox=wox.

For my second island, I came up with L’éclatant - I wanted something that meant shimmering/dazzling/brilliant, anything along those lines. My second island is an enchanted forest theme, so I felt that fit. Though now I suppose I should’ve picked something meaning “enchanted” haha. Anyways, that’s how I came up with my island names.

 

[Jhine7]

I thought of a theme and then came up with the name based on that. My island theme is loosely based on Greek Mythology, so my island name is Olympus. Followed my naming convention from New Leaf, which was Amazon. My newest Gamecube version town name on Steam Deck is Alajuela, a province in Costa Rica.

 

[dizzy bone]

Since I knew my island wasn't going to be themed, I decided to make the name personal to me. It's basically my surname + the Korean word for mountain. I liked how it sounded and that it also meant carbonated drink lol. After the update one of the plastic benches also got a customization option (I'm guessing for a drink company) that has "Tansan" on it! So I use that everywhere.

If I were to make it themed, I was going to name it something Fantasy Life related because I was super into FL before ACNH came out (you know I was excited when they announced the new switch title recently).

 

[Pyoopi]

I did have a theme in mind and I began to pull from video games/tv shows/ cartoons on what makes a good jungle-pirate name. There was a point I was going to include isle/keys/lagoon but the character limit was my biggest enemy.
So I referenced my old NL town (HeeHee) and went with an upgraded version (Teehee). Added another word and it's now TeeheeTiki.

 

[Firesquids]

My island is named after the world of Spyro 2, Avalar. The game was a childhood favorite of mine and my sister's, and still means a lot to me to this day. That being said, my island is not necessarily themed after Spyro, but it does make some references to it. In the recent TBT blogging event, I've officially named the locations of my island after levels from the original trilogy. There's also an area of my island that is a reference to the Sunny Flight portal from Spyro 1.

Although I love the origal trilogy of games the most of the series, my ultimate favorite will always be the second game. Possibly because when we were kids the disc got scratched and we were unable to play it for a long time eventually be got a disc repair kit and got it to play but I screamed out of excitement and the game froze again, we did eventually get it to work again, memory makes me smile.

 

[xSuperMario64x]

both my original island and new island, Floaroma and Lilycove, are named after locations in Pokemon games. Floaroma is a village in Sinnoh, and Lilycove is a city in Hoenn!

 

[ZeldaCrossing64]

I never have a coherent theme for any of my islands, so I name them after random locations from games I like. (For example, Termina from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. If I made a new island now I probably would've named it Wuhu Island or something, haha.) But my current one is called Newgrounds. I was really into Friday Night Funkin' at the time and Newgrounds is the name of the site that you can play the original game on. I don't play FNF anymore, but I still like my island name a lot, I think it sounds pretty cool.

 

[VanitasFan26]

I kinda name my island after a popular world from my favorite game. For example my main island "Destiny" is named after Destiny Isles from Kingdom Hearts 1. The other one (I have 2nd switch btw and 2nd copy) "Quadratum" which is a brand new world confirmed by the up coming game Kingdom Hearts 4.

 

[HappyTails]

My main island is named Equinox and my second island is named Test. XD

Test is the island I use to time travel and get any non orderables from long ago like today I got the 2021 and 2022 arches.

I have no idea why I named my island Equinox. I just thought it was a pretty cool name.

 

[apeisland]

My island is called Hután. It is malay for forest but adapted to my language, spanish.

It is forest themed and orangutans are my favourite animals. As you can tell, my island only has monkey and gorilla villagers ❤ so that is how I chose, based off my theme and favourite animal ❤

 

[AccfSally]

Tropicako, I was trying to be unique; the island is just another Japanese theme island.