Ardwin

I am writing a book that is set in the far west suburbs of Chicago. Due to the nature of my book I would prefer to use a fictional city or town instead of a real one. I know the area fairly well and could write convincingly about the fictional city, however I haven't been to the area for a few years and haven't lived there for over a decade so I couldn't write convincingly about a real place. I've had no luck finding any name generators for cities that weren't "Fantasy" or "RPG" related and I am having an even harder time finding anything in the forum posts regarding this topic. I do remember a lot of the popular movies of the 80's - "Ferris Buehlers Day off.", "The Breakfast Club" and several others used fictional Chicago suburb towns as their settings.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

nacreous

why not simply make up a name on your own? That is surely the safest and easiest way to do this. If you want help actually naming the town, you are giving up one of the most creative aspects of your work. Its fun, besides, to think of weird names for places and characters. I've seen those name generators, and I've always wondered why in the hell would anyone need that? Just start brainstorming, jotting down the names you come up with without any censure, then go back and slowly choose the best one. go for smooth-sounding names, if you ask me. No hard consonants, just nice smooth vowels. You can also mess about with foreshadowing in the name of your town. Some root word allusion to what will happen in your plot. Honestly, go to a computer for this, and youre throwing away a really fun experience.
good luck on this. note that I did not provide any names for you.

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nacreous - a type of high-flying cloud which often reflects the setting sun back to the earth long after darkness has fallen on the land.

Noirllyn

I had a similar problem. The story I'm putting most of my energy into right now was originally (in my mind) set in Maine in a city along the border with Quebec. The problem with this, is that the three or so cities that are close enough to the border for my tastes aren't cities at all. They're villages. It would make more sense for me to move the city further away, rather than to give it the name of a village by the border. However, most of the cities in Maine are still too small... and if they're not... Stephen King stole them.

I was reluctant to make up a name. I didn't, yet. I'm not entirely sure I will. I'm just strongly implying an area without ever stating it.

Do you need to to tell people where you are, specifically?

If you are going to make up a name, here is my suggestion:
Decide upon the origin of the city and the Amerindian history. I live on the east coast, so all of the names are very strict old English phrases describing the main feature of the town. Obviously places close to the Border have Spanish names more regularly, so on.

Look at the word history of Chicago (www.dictionary.com):
Word History: People from Chicago ought to like onions. The name Chicago is first recorded in 1688 in a French document, where it appears as Chigagou, an Algonquian word meaning "onion field." In explanation of this name, the document states there that wild onion or garlic grew profusely in the area. The name of the field or meadow was first transferred to the river and then was given to the city in 1830.

I'd go with a French or Algonquian name. Think about onions and fields and garlic, too, if you want. Throw in shallots, just because they're cool and onion-like. Or, think about an element of your story, an important theme, and perhaps take the French word for it.

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Ardwin

Why would anyone need something like that? Well, in my case I am seriously involving all of my creative powers into the story. I'm not your typical writer I guess, not that I know many really, however I don't use outlines or free writing or any of that. Most of my stories, and I have about 10-20, are all in my head kind of like a movie. I can watch them, rewind, fast forward, pause, etc. Takes most of my brainpower and creativity to keep it all straight, so I use tools like name generators to help out. My ADHD doesn't really help matters much. As it stands I feel already I have spent way too much time on this...haha.

That said, if anyone has any input, links, or idea's, other then "think it up yourself" (Thats already been suggested..haha) I'd appreciate the input.

Thanks
Ardy

Serendipity

Hey there! Try using a map that has city names from anywhere in the world. Then have a fun "play on words" session or pick a cool name you find from the map. Start simple, end big

Good luck!

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Sayuri

In my area, we have a town name with an interesting origin. Originally it was just a pit stop, a railway town with like four houses and an inn and bar, and this cute girl named Eupora was the bar-owner's daughter. So traders and soldiers and whoever else would talk about how they couldn't wait to go see Eupora, and the town was known generally as "Eupora's place." Over time that just shortened to "Eupora." (I have a strong suspicion that Eupora was a floozy, if not an actual prostitute.)

Feel free to 'cop that if you want and change the name to something else. Or you could do something similar with just any type of distinctive personality--a famous screwup, frequent duel-er, etc.

Or, yeah, just think about who originally inhabited the town and whether it was Germans, Indians, Spanish, French, etc.

Annanan1

I often take real names of either places or things and mix them together then add an approprite suffix, such as ville, burge, city etc. can sometimes work.

Wendy