Needed: House names

[jlh]

And by this I don't mean like, Slytherin or Kirkland. I mean, names for houses that are really sort of estates, like Pemberley. I need names for:

• two houses in Virginia that at one time in the past were likely plantations
  
• a duke's estate in England.

Help me, o livejournal of great wisdom!

Meanwhile, today I read nine relatively short, but quite good, Lindsay Lohan/Samantha Ronson fics. Link provided upon request.

Comments

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

I'm sure these large estates belong to completely fictional people, yeah?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Do you mean, as opposed to my actually owning such real estate, or do you mean, as opposed to my writing RPF? I neither own nor am in any way related to this real estate (though my grandmother's house was called "Through the Pines" and had a little hand-painted sign announcing this at the end of her rather long driveway, even though her actual house was a trailer on top of a root cellar). As for the people being fictional, the AU is such that they pretty much are.

Have I said too much? There is nothing more I can think of to say to you.

Except "what's with the Prufrock?" but that moment may have passed. Eat the peach.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

Oh. I seeee. The snarky tone in my voice didn't carry across with the interweb text. I think I meant to type:

Holyshit clio, why don't you just save your fingers the work next time and say, "If Ryan and Simon had estates, what would they be called?"

I feel like not enough people use profanity in your journal. So I'm doing double.

Also, I love you. Did you not get my omgwtfbrowniestyvm email? The f stands for fuck.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I thought that's what you might mean, and then I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt because I am a kind and considerate person.

Ryan is from Atlanta, not Virginia. :P They are in a Ryan and Simon story, but they are not Ryan and Simon's houses, and the whole thing takes place in London in 1939-40 so you know, AU, etc.

I love you too, and I did get your email and I'm very glad you got the package, but you wanted me to call and there wasn't a good time for that today. What are your hours of wakefulness?

And what is your honest opinion on the peanut butter ones? It's the first time I've made them.

Veda also says hi. She is stretching out her paws toward the computer, no doubt in yearning for you, as I type this.

[ziggy1278.livejournal.com]

My mistake. It has been a while since I talked to Ryan.

Any time is fine. I'm on pretty normal person hours but I take naps so I can still troll the internet at night.

The peanut butter ones are tasty, but fall apart in strange ways - this may, however, be a result of traveling 3000 miles.

Yearning to slice my supple human flesh with her poison tipped razor claws of death, you mean?

[rawles.livejournal.com]

I got nothing for plantations, but this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_surnames) of English surnames has been very helpful in my recent Regency endeavors. And here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_British_place_names#Elements) is a list of generic prefixes/suffixes commonly used to form English place names!

[titanic-days.livejournal.com]

The list is very comprehensive but this is a list of generic British place names and while you can make loads of place names out of it, you'd need to be careful to put them in a geographic context. Some of those names are Viking and correspond to a boundary defined area of eastern England, some are Scottish, some are Welsh or Irish. It would be very unusual to find an estate called Aberafon in England, for instance.

I like the sound of Cherrywood for Virginia.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

So I was very clever and looked up extinct titles and settled on the Duke of Sussex. Does it then follow that the estate should actually be in Sussex, particularly as the title was created as a royal one? And therefore, what sort of prefix-suffix combos should I stick to?

I like your suggestion, too, and I'm probably going to end up with Ten Trees for one of the VA places because it's a reference to another film and now I can't get it out of my head.

[piperki.livejournal.com]

Is it too much like Twelve Oaks (from GWTW)?

AFA Sussex, look here (http://www2.prestel.co.uk/aspen/sussex/namelist.html)? I think something with a Hill or a Combe might work, but titanic_days has veto power, I think. ;)

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

i vote for sussex. i LIVE in sussex. it's more like mayberry, though. i don't think they've ever elected a democrat.

[rawles.livejournal.com]

Well, they're also labeled by origin!

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Brideshead (revisited or otherwise)

[darth-kittius.livejournal.com]

Generally I find I like tree types as names for houses... so decide what type of trees you want prominent on the estate and then work from there. (I.E. if I was going to have a drive lined in Elm trees, I'd call the estate Elmswood or Elmsly.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Let's see...a lot of times they're described by the place. I remember hearing about a haunted plantation called something with Rose in it. I think it's Rose Hall? Or it could be something like Rose of Sharon--like a girl or a house? Or something romantic like Cupid's Grove or Arcadia? Three Hills? Cecilia? Anna's Home/Anna's Dream? (Presumably Anna or Annie died before seeing the place...) Tentagel?

The Duke's house should probably have a little more dignity. (I always remember a friend of mine after seeing Howard's End said, "I don't understand why it was called Howard's End. It should have been called Leonard's End." Sydney's End has a nice ring to it!) I'm going through all the fictional ones--Bligh, Manderly, Brideshead...How about Ballantray or Fothingbrow?

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

In SC and LA plantations seem to have fakey French names a lot: Belle Rive, Bellevue, Beaufort pronounced Bewfurd, Also, anything + Grove (Walnut Grove, Winter Grove, Sea Grove).

The other plantation naming habits are a local Indian name (Tupelo or Powhatan, or the like), an ancient Greek or Roman name such as Attica or Macedonia, or something biblical such as Babylon or Galilee.