# I need a name for a city of merpeople. Thoughts? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 22, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112 "2010-12-22T20:13:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/41 "2010-12-23T00:02:55Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > It’s an inherently silly discussion, but those are my speciality, so I’ll respond. > > This is a work of _fiction_ I am writing _upon request_ as an Xmas present. It’s about the requestor’s fantasy visit to the city of the merpeople, set ina world I’ve written about before. The basic conceits imply either magic or a world with different physical laws than the real one. I don’t see why you’d expect sociology to work the same when physics clearly doesn’t. Whatever name you call it it’s helpful to remember to avoid the problems common with city-under-the-sea stories [(as addressed in this TV Tropes page).](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AtlantisIsBoring) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/42 "2010-12-23T00:28:05Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Whatever name you call it it’s helpful to remember to avoid the problems common with city-under-the-sea stories [(as addressed in this TV Tropes page).](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AtlantisIsBoring) Can’t be arsed to care about that. Story’s not for publication; it’s an Xmas present. I just wanted a name that sounded nice. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/43 "2010-12-23T01:47:31Z")
Aquaregia. See if anyone gets it. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/44 "2010-12-23T01:59:33Z")
Bikini Bottom Shellville Mile deep city Drink Brackland ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/45 "2010-12-23T03:57:30Z")
Aqua Velva? Aqua Vulva? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/46 "2010-12-23T04:19:27Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > And you know that girl left him the next morning. _ **Yeah…** _ They do… Actually, there is a series of UK kids’ books written by Gillian Shields called **Mermaid — Sisters of the Sea** , which is possibly aimed at small girls ‘_Meet Misty, Ellie, Sophie, Holly, Lucy and Scarlett_’. Very\* British\* small mermaidens. To avoid copyright infringement you might avoid: ‘Oceania’, ‘Coral Kingdom’, and ‘Giant Kelp Forest’. When searching as above, I ran across another lady I’d never heard of, **Miss Henriette Mertz** , a Chicago patent attorney who in the '60s and '70s studied Homer and concluded the Odyssey went North… _Moreover, Mertz believed that Odysseus faced Scylla and Charybdis when he arrived at the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Mertz also proposed that the Argonauts travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, down the east coast of South America, past the mouth of the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro to the Rio Plata of Argentina. From Rio Plata, Jason went to the altiplano of Bolivia and to Tihuanaco where the Golden Fleece was located._ _“Mertz actually proposed in her book Atlantis: Dwelling Place of the Gods that the eastern section of the United States, from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers east, was the Atlantis of Greek myth.”_ and… _Did the ancient Chinese know British Columbia as the land of the fir tree ?_ On the other hand, she was a code-breaker during WWII, which argues greater intelligence than most of us; yet possibly even the ranks of cryptoanalysts have their share of eccentrics. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/47 "2010-12-23T04:27:24Z")
Sorry, Wiki **[link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henriette_Mertz)**. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/48 "2010-12-23T04:38:12Z")
Bathyopolis would be the Greek rendition of “Deep City”, plus it includes the entirely happenstance association in English of “bath” meaning being immersed in water. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/49 "2010-12-23T12:04:55Z")
Yoinks ago I wrote about a sea-centric culture (a thalasocracy) and named their only city Thalassas. IIUC, it’s Greek for “the sea”, not “a sea” but “all that salty water out there”; I’ve seen several versions for the transliteration. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2010, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/50 "2010-12-23T13:32:22Z")
Glub ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/51 "2010-12-24T03:42:05Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > For Yule-related reasons I am breaking my embargo on writing fiction. I need a name for a city inhabited by mermaid and mermen. Thoughts? Fishtopolis? ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/52 "2010-12-24T03:53:13Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > _ **Yeah…** _ They do… > > When searching as above, I ran across another lady I’d never heard of, **Miss Henriette Mertz** , a Chicago patent attorney who in the '60s and '70s studied Homer and concluded the Odyssey went North… > _Moreover, Mertz believed that Odysseus faced Scylla and Charybdis when he arrived at the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Mertz also proposed that the Argonauts travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, down the east coast of South America, past the mouth of the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro to the Rio Plata of Argentina. From Rio Plata, Jason went to the altiplano of Bolivia and to Tihuanaco where the Golden Fleece was located._ > > _“Mertz actually proposed in her book Atlantis: Dwelling Place of the Gods that the eastern section of the United States, from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers east, was the Atlantis of Greek myth.”_ > > and… _Did the ancient Chinese know British Columbia as the land of the fir tree ?_ > > On the other hand, she was a code-breaker during WWII, which argues greater intelligence than most of us; yet possibly even the ranks of cryptoanalysts have their share of eccentrics. Interesting - this fellow posits that Troy was somewhere in Celtic Britain over the tin mines in Cornwall. > **[Where Troy Once Stood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Troy_Once_Stood)** > > Where Troy Once Stood: The Mystery of Homer"s Iliad and Odyssey Revealed is a 1990 book by Iman Jacob Wilkens that argues that the city of Troy was located in England and that the Trojan War was fought between groups of Celts. The standard view is that Troy is located near the Dardanelles in Turkey. Wilkens claims that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, though products of ancient Greek culture, are originally orally transmitted epic poems from Western Europe. Wilkens disagrees with conventional ideas ... ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/53 "2010-12-24T03:58:24Z")
Burfillia. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/54 "2010-12-24T04:01:35Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Something myth-inspired, as the story I’ve been asked to write is set in a fantasy-kitchen sink world in which various pantheons existed at one time; Poseidon is the last of the Olympians. Right now I’m using “Arion,” but I don’t like that because Arion is a son of Poseidon and the merfolk hate that son of Kronos. Mu Lemuria Falias, Glorias, Murias and Finias were cities of the Tuatha na Danaan, & Danu was the goddess of craftsmanship. Fomor Ybrik ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/55 "2010-12-24T04:25:04Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Glub Glub Med. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/56 "2010-12-24T05:49:31Z")
Mariana City. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/57 "2010-12-24T06:14:44Z")
Aquaria Seasurfia Pacifica Brine Aquamarina Oceane ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/58 "2010-12-25T13:37:40Z")
Something related to Pontus, Nereus, or Proteus, perhaps? Since you are casting Posiedon as the enemy, perhaps Caenis would be apt. > **[Caeneus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caeneus)** > > In Greek mythology, Caeneus (/ˈsɛnjuːs/ SEN-yooss; Ancient Greek: Καινεύς, romanized: Kaineús) was a Lapith hero of Thessaly. > According to Book XII of Ovid's Metamorphoses, he was originally a woman, Caenis (/ˈsiːnɪs/; Ancient Greek: Καινίς, romanized: Kainís), daughter of Atrax. > In Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, he is briefly noted as the great father of a lesser son, Coronus, who sailed forth among the Argonauts. Caeneus was also an Argonaut in some versions. The striking mythic image of ... ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/59 "2010-12-25T23:58:08Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > Interesting - this fellow posits that Troy was somewhere in Celtic Britain over the tin mines in Cornwall. > > [Where Troy Once Stood - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Troy_Once_Stood) Wow. Cornwall has a habit of inspiring fey thinking… [Actually, though nice countryside; and wherever you are you are never more than 20 miles from the sea: it’s as prosaic as the rest of Europe now — it’s quite safe to take a coach-ride through Transylvania now, I hear]. Such theorizing seems to have found it’s summit in **[Divus Julius](http://www.carotta.de/eindex.html)**, with the idea that Jesus Christ is merely an aspect of Julius Caesar; but an imaginative person seeking wealth could possibly mix up the Arthurian legend, with the Troy legend, and the Breton myths of Ys, and Lyonesse, and Christ **[visiting Cornwall](http://www.lundyisleofavalon.co.uk/godsetc/joseph3.htm)** along with Joseph of Arimathea, and throw the Norse myths in there. If only to annoy the Welsh. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112/60 "2010-12-26T04:23:27Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Glub No, no. Glug. Then all the little cities around it would comprise the Glug Archipelago. Also, Langerhans, located i the Islets of Langerhans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-a-name-for-a-city-of-merpeople-thoughts/565112.md?page=4)