Could we name nameless places in history anything we want?

There's an island in Greece called Ro, near another island called Kastelorizo. Around the Classical and Hellenistic periods, Ro used to be called Rhoge and Kastelorizo was called Megisti. But like a lot of places in periods such as the Neolithic period, nobody knows what places were called that far back in history; even if they were colonized.

Megisti/Kastelorizo has been proven to have been colonized during the Neolithic period, but the name of the people and the island is unknown.

So if you're telling a story taking place in 'pre-Megisti' or 'pre-Rhoge,' is it acceptable to have an alternate historical name for those places? Or should we always wait until discoveries reveal their actual names? You folks know your history, so I came here to ask :{o~
 
That's an interesting issue. You are proposing what to call those things which do not have a name. I wouldn't suggest using some names totally made up, like "Ankara" or something else jibbersih just made to sound fitting. What I would suggest is something pertaining to the subject matter, and based on actual language. In your examples, perhaps something like Proto-Rhoge or Alpha-Rhoge, or whatever "Ancient People of the Island of Rhoge" is in Greek without any of the spaces. Or, perhaps something like "People of the [Insert Special Feature Here]", in Greek.
 
If you are basically creating a people for the place then you can create a name that these people give for the place. But they wouldn't call it gibberish, it would be a name that meant something to them, based either on a geographical feature or a myth/allegory

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
You can do a Tolkien: "Well, of course the Shire, Bag End, Buckland and Tookborough weren't actually called the Shire, Bag End, Buckland and Tookborough in the language of the Hobbits. Hell, the Hobbits actually called themselves kuduk. But when you translate the names' meanings and etymologies into English using Old English as an erzats source for Old Rohirric-..."

Sometimes I wonder how long the Lord of the Rings would be if Tolkien had included footnotes regarding the etymologies to every word he used that he invented himself.

...probably quite massive.
 
Thank you for the replies, everyone. I'll have to start thinking of some good names and find out how to say them in Ancient Greek :]

@aoravec75: LOL
 
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Sometimes I wonder how long the Lord of the Rings would be if Tolkien had included footnotes regarding the etymologies to every word he used that he invented himself.

...probably quite massive.

I just had this vision of Christopher Tolkien, W.H. Auden and a few others sitting around reading LOTR, and towards the end, J.R.R. comes in and says "here fellows, I anotated the story so every one knows the five million year history of the word lembas." at which point the younger Tolkien just gets up and leaves the room while Auden has a slight stroke.
 
There's an island in Greece called Ro, near another island called Kastelorizo. Around the Classical and Hellenistic periods, Ro used to be called Rhoge and Kastelorizo was called Megisti. But like a lot of places in periods such as the Neolithic period, nobody knows what places were called that far back in history; even if they were colonized.

Megisti/Kastelorizo has been proven to have been colonized during the Neolithic period, but the name of the people and the island is unknown.

So if you're telling a story taking place in 'pre-Megisti' or 'pre-Rhoge,' is it acceptable to have an alternate historical name for those places? Or should we always wait until discoveries reveal their actual names? You folks know your history, so I came here to ask :{o~

Very interesting,but here you talk about an island that may go back to Cykladic or proto-Cykladic(proto-Greek or pro-Greek) civilization that goes back to 9000 BC populated by Pelasgians or proto-Greeks, but I don't know the writing of the time,perhaps the digging in Santorini(Akrotiri) will shed a light...but knew names,sound a bit risky,for one in case that such a name already exists and of course we will not find it in Wikipedia(naturally...).
 
You can always give it an alternate name - as in, in this timeline, by such and such a group, it was called X, and that group having their name stick for it TTL.

That avoids the issue of what it was really called, but means you need person or people naming it to be able to make their choice of name stick.
 
you can give an alternative name, although it should be something of Pelasgian or prehistoric Asian Minor if you make a TL in prehistoric era.

If you choose Pelasgian, I' d propose something starting with "Ach", which is a Pelasgian root related to water. Like Ach-eron (river), Ach-eloos (river), Ach-ivada (sea shell), Ach-aravi (a beach in Corfu), Ach-illes (son of a sea-godess, "baptised in water to become undestructible), etc...

Or you can choose something with the ending "-illas", which means a place with a lot of something: Spart-illas (a place with a lot of sparte=a bush), Vourl-illas (a place with vourla= kind of cane which grow in ponds and rivers), etc...
 
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