Place Names

I'm on the road with my husband and two year old. We've loaded up all our worldly possessions and are off on the epic family road trip from Charlottesville, VA to Silverton, OR. No, I'm not crazy. Really, I'm not. We've made it to Owatonna, MN without anyone going crazy and without resorting to the DVD player.

The only problem is I'm not writing. At all. It makes me nervous to be away from my story and characters for so long. To assuage my guilt, I'm doing writerly things like making lists of place names I like the sound of and filing them away for later use. Here's some I've lifted directly from road signs:

Trillium
White Sulfur Springs
Summersville
Lick Creek Road
Snap Dragon Falls
Tamarack
Laurel Springs
Eagle Creek
Greenup

How do you name the places in your stories? I always have a hard time with this. If I make them up they sound too airy and fanciful, and if I lift them from somewhere they sound too, well, real. The right name is hard to find.

I came across a website recently that is a random place name generator. After clicking through about 30 names I realized I wasn't going to find my answer. Still, it's kinda fun. Here's another for fantasy names...like you need more ways to waste time on the internet.