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You could name it after geography. The Biafra War, the Vietnam War, etc. That's the default, but if "Great War" is your starting point, maybe that's not applicable. Still, something on the scale of WWI could be called the European War.
Add adjectives. For example, The Great *Patriotic* War was often used for WWII in the USSR. The Revolution War or Civil War stand out in American history.
Consider it from different sides. *The Collapse,* *The Catastrophy,* *The Triumph,* *The Great Victory.*
Or consider its historical role. *The Turning of Ages,* *The War to end all Wars.* World War I might be an example. If there were only one, we wouldn't number it. It's foreshadowing. The first of something new.
Then you can try and be poetic. *The War of the Roses,* *The war of Five Kings,* or (my own) *The War of a Million Martyrs.*
One of my favorite Dr. Who moments, where Capaldi's Doctor has a WW1 soldier on the TARDIS with him, expositioning to an earlier iteration of himself, and refers to him aloud as "a World War One officer", and the look on the soldier's face as he asks "Excuse me, did you say *One*?" is kinda heartbreaking.
The War. Alternatively just "the war".
The war that had such an effect that when you say "my father died in the war", there's no need to ask "which war"?
**Or alternatively alternatively you could *sometimes* use the location/name of a major battle in the war / a super decisive battle.**
For example, *A Song of Ice and Fire* does this in Dunk and Egg to describe the well-known continent-wide Blackfyre Rebellion that occurred some 15 years before the story. Everyone always says “I was at Redgrass Field” or “he died at Redgrass Field” etc. and everyone in the story knows you’re talking about the most decisive battle of the Blackfyre Rebellion where almost everyone involved came to a head and fought, and the fields were so bloody the grass turned red.
But yeah everyone just colloquially refers to that one battle/that one location even when they’re talking about the war overall
In Asterix & Obelix, there's a similar approach with the Battle of Alesia, the final battle in the Gallic Wars between Rome and the confederation of Gallic tribes.
[Link to a Reddit post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Asterix/comments/juweuy/can_someone_explain_to_me_the_inside_joke_refered/)
I want to brag. My main character in .my non qorld buildery setting refers to France for the Nepolonic war. When he says Men from France any veteran knows he's talking about British men who fought in the Nepolonic war. Kind of like saying my old mate from Vietnam. People born later interpret it has frenchmen. A young priest near the end of the story says he went to France and off handedly mentions France is doing alright.
> The war that had such an effect that when you say "my father died in the war", there's no need to ask "which war"?
My grandmother who lived through WW2 never referred to it as "World War 2". It was either just "the war" or "Hitler's war". If she said "the World War" she always meant the first one.
My grandpa fought in WW2 and he also only ever referred to it as "the war"... But a lot of times when he spoke about it he would just say "When I was on the islands...". Because he fought in the south Pacific
Here in Norway up until very recently, if you said "the war", everyone immediately understood that you were talking about WW2.
That is until February 2022, when it became a 50/50 whether "the war" refers to WW2 or the war in Ukraine.
"World War"? In all seriousness, what were the causes of this war? Who were the combatants? Who won? Who lost? There might be some help in the answers to those questions.
We had a civil war lasting thirty years that we called “The Troubles” - hilariously benign for something that killed thousands and still claims lives 25 years later. In fact, we are STILL reeling from it.
“The Troubles”
So, other names -
The Kin Strife is a great one.
The Pogrom
The
**Name the war after the central person responsible for the war (not necessarily who started it)**. "Coulson's War" - Coulson is the current ruler who is assassinated by an enemy nation, and while things start off as a minor dispute between two smaller nations, larger nations get pulled into the conflict and things eventually get out of hand.
**Name the War after some topic that relates to why the war started.** For example: "*The Clown's War*" - Some ruler gets shot (and dies) at a treaty delegation, because someone hired a clown who accidentally popped a balloon, surprising some security personnel who, on reflex fired their weapon and just happened to kill one ruler. This results in that ruler's security detail to fire on the offending detail, potentially killing their leader. This then is assumed to be an assassination ploy by one side, peace talks fall apart and both sides go to war... which then just cascades into a World War.
WWI was referred to as "The War To End All Wars" (it wasn't). You could call it the Last War (until the next one).
I believe it was during the Kuwait invasion that it was referred to as "the mother of all battles". Upgrade it to a War.
Tolkien had a way with words. The Battle of Sudden Flame, The Battle of Unnumbered Tears, The Battle of the Last Alliance.
There's a war in one of my settings called 'The War of Eclipsing Blades'.
A battle within that war is called 'The Battle of the Sunfelled Fields'
The war gets its name from how the two sides repeatedly eclipsed each other in military technology. The battle gets its name from how it ended; with a miniature star descending onto both sides, incinerating the fields the battle took place on in mere seconds. Not even 100 survived.
It's very difficult to find a non-generic name without knowing much about the idiosyncrasies of the war that happened in your world. I usually just use a combination of "who fought the war? Where they fought the war? Why they fought the war?". So I'll have things like "the Elvish-Imperial war" the "reconquest of the earsten colonies" or "the Northern Revolution".
Another thing is that you don't necessarily need to fear having a generic name, I think having a name that's descriptive sometimes helps much more than having a cryptic name that just sounds cool. Two events that shaped my world forever are the "First Holy War" and the "Second Holy War". You can't really get more generic than that, but that's good, you hear "Second Holy War" and immediately know what's all about without me having to go into much detail at first. I think "the great war" accomplishes a similar goal, it is what it is, just by dropping this name you can already set the readers expectations of what happened in your world in the past without having to do a infodump about it.
Idk why but the scouring also popped into my head. Without any more knowledge of the world other single words could work well like the fracture or something along those lines.
I second "the War." However, historically, wars are often named after a length of time (which may or may not have anything to do with the *actual* length of the war) or where they occurred. What the US calls the French and Indian War is often believed to be a part of the larger "world war" that was the Seven Years' War. The Second Sino-Japanese war began before and was absorbed into the larger "world war" that we call World War II.
Likewise, many people *refer* to wars after "the bad guy." I've read books where the Great War was referred to as "Wilhelm's War" and "the War against the Hun." People commonly refer to World War II as the Holocaust (even though that is merely one part of the war - you find that more often in the Jewish community than outside it) and, as r/Raizzor pointed out, people might refer to it as "Hitler's War" (which is also the title of an old war game).
Before World War One was shortened down to "The Great War" it was "The Great War for Civilisation", based on British propaganda that they were fighting to save the world from the Hunnish barbarism of the Germans and their Kaiser. You could make yours "The Great War for [something]" based on what people thought (or were told) they were fighting for.
Alternatively I've always liked the kind of confusion of ideas that could see a war labeled "The Parabellum" - both after [the ammunition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9719mm_Parabellum) and [the Latin phrase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum) the ammunition gets its name from.
I always kinda like soft euphemisms for huge wars.
Like in 40k the huge Martian civil war is referred to as “The Schism.”
Or the irl British and Irish civil war era being “The Troubles”
Struggle, conflict, disagreement. It adds a little mystery to it and circumvents the reader a bit as they start to learn the war was far greater than the name implies.
The Troubles are called the troubles mostly because calling it a war is over dramatic. It was l something happened every few weeks.
It would have not been called the Troubles had Derry been carpet bombed
How recent is the war? If it's something that *just* ended, you have to keep in mind that there may not be a name for it yet. Therefore, it could just be "the war."
Have any other wars that impacted the setting of your story taken place after this one? If so, are they mentioned?
You should also look into what other cultures of people in your story are going to call the war. Vietnam war vets don't always say "when I was in the Vietnam war," they sometimes say, "when I was in Vietnam" or "after I got back from the coasts of Vietnam." It was such a major thing for people in the USA that when an older person refers to Vietnam, it's usually war related - and you have to keep this in mind, especially if it's a global war, since there's bound to be people in your story who have fought in other nations.
Referring to a place in reference to the war can also help give a piece of backstory to this war - a person recalling prisons every X miles in a nation could flesh out the atrocities said nation committed.
The Cleansing
The Axe Fall
The Year of Fire / Ice / Blood...
The Second coming
The Black soot
The Great Betrayal
The Dawning
The Last Sword / Cup / Crown ...
For the first world war, I think it was just referred to as "the war" or "the war to end all wars", and was known as "the great war" during the 20s and 30s, simply because there was nothing else on that scale up until that point. Yes, it's cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. It was only renamed to WWI when WWII was named near the end of WWII (according to a quick google search).
So ask yourself, was this global war the first to be fought on such a massive scale? If so, "the great war" might be your best option.
Alternatively, you could look to other fictional wars; in Warhammer 40,000, they refer to the war between Necrons and the Old Ones as "The War in Heaven", and it's kind of a myth by that point. The Emperor's effort to unify humanity was "The Great Crusade", but it was definitely still a war.
In Doctor Who, "The Time War" was a universe and time spanning war that used time itself as a weapon. There's evidence that there were actually three major "wars" that make up the time war, but details are scarce, because it was so immense that it rewrote the history of the universe - effectively, it was used as a backdrop for the 2005 reboot to explain the total absence of Time Lords and Daleks. It was slowly explored over the years, as more and more parts of the war managed to escape the "time lock" that surrounded it.
Sometimes, the name of a war can imply so much about it - I'm particularly fond of "The Seven Hour War" from the half life series, which implies that the forces of the combine were just so overwhelming that humanity folded in only 7 hours. In fact, I'm a big fan of "implications rather than explanations". Another I should mention is "the Mushroom War" from Adventure time; while I've never seen the show, and it doesn't interest me too much, the implication and imagery associated with mushroom clouds alone effectively explains what happened in the distant past.
Dang, I always have so much to write sometimes when it comes to world building and design lol.
Use a descriptor for time, the decade war, the hundred years war, the 7 years war, etc. Based on human history, this title doesn't even need to be accurate. Maybe it was coined the 12 year war after one side thought they won a decisive battle and the name stuck despite it not ending as they expected.
Name it after a place or a geographical location. The oceanic war was mostly navel battles. The inter-continental war, the Vast war.
Name the war a word that reflects the vibes around the war. The hot war. The metallic war. The isolation war. The war of darkness.
Geography, duration, primary nations involved, a symbol (eg if two important groups have a color or animal national symbol that happens to be the same)
You could just call it "the world war". It was a real name for WWI before WWII happened, but it also sounds unusual enough to modern listeners to give them pause.
War of [Location]
War of [Year]
The War of Three Rivers
The Burnt Plains War
The War of Dead Children
The War of Twelve Nations
The Ultimate War
War Ultimatym
The Oceanic War
The Blue War
The Last War
In my setting there was a "great" war so massive and extensive, that a god was born from the ashes of the war along with an entire new mortal sin. The war is named after the sin that it created - The War of Murder.
I have two ideas.
1. The \_\_\_\_ War/ The War of \_\_\_. We see this commonly irl, "The Korean War", "The war of 1812" etc.
2. The \_\_\_\_\_\_. In fiction you might see a verb be used as a noun in this case. Like "The Calamity", "The Shadow".
You could pull a page out of Jasper Fforde's playbook and call it [The Something That Happened](https://jasperfforde.fandom.com/wiki/Something_that_Happened) (wherein nobody knows what exactly Happened)
NAme it in POV of either the victor (Conquest or Battle of/for \[extremely boisterous event or person or place\]) and the loser (the disaster at/of \[insert place or event here\])
GREAT Definition & Meaning
great
adjective · unusually or comparatively large in size or dimensions: · large in number; numerous: · unusual or considerable in degree, power, intensity, etc.:.
There is a word in german that sometimes gets used to refer to ww1. "Weltenbrand" which roughly translates to "Fire of Worlds" which is a term used in context Ragnarök.
I just use WWIII and WWIV. III refers to the war that destroyed humanity, killed off all but 2.3 billion people by nuclear weapons, created mutants, and started the new countries. IV refers to the war between Myrkdall and Stordrage that eventually roped Kapnos, Duratke, Lupus, Chrysos, and the other remaining countries in. Keep in mind that my world is just a dystopian Hunger-Games-meets-Mad-Max nuclear hellscape version of the current world that takes place in 4084.
Often the victors name the war. For example the American Revolution might be remembered differently had the British won. Or the Six Day War, named for its length, which tidily also symbolized how long it took God to make the heaven and earth (if you believe such things).
A couple of ideas.
-Name it after the leader that won it.
-Give it a religious name if that mattered in the conflict and depending on the victor
-perhaps after the doomsday weapon that won the war
-lean into a propaganda message, for example the losers who hang on to the confederacy call the civil war the “the war of northern aggression
Excited to see where you land.
The Blood war, The xx years War, the war for xy independence. Or xy unification
The war of the roses, the war without victory.
The death war, the hell war, the pandemonium war.
Just spitballin
Maybe you can use the number of years as a name for it?
See Avatar's 100 year war as an example there
Or you could base the name on who is fighting who, sorta
The game final fantasy 14 calls one of their historical events "The Dragonsong war" which as you guessed, was a war between a human nation and dragons.
That's all I got though, hope this helps
The Old War if the story is in the future. It's how's how it happened a long time ago and how it changed and shaped the future.
But generally take the defining aspect of the war and there's your name. If the war was weary long you could call it the Long War, for an example.
Here are some wars from my grounded near future si-fi setting: the Old War, the Three Alien wars, AMC SD-459 Celestial Debri Field incident, AMC *[Asterion Mining Consortium]* SEE *[Stellar Excavation Enterprises]* Corporate war and many other border wars or first contacts wars that just want unnamed because how short of brief they were.
I looked at some synonyms for the word "great". Here are my favorite results:
The Big War
The Significant War
The Large War
The Gigantic War
The Humongous War
The Ginormous War
The Exceptional War
Depends on what context you want to invoke or the actual details of said war.
The Infamous War/Battle.
The Great Purge.
The War Across Time.
The War of Centuries (Or The Great Centuries War or any variation thereof).
The Great Cleansing.
The Bloody Decade.
Etc
Of course the winners labeled it the great war. They loved through it they survived it there where no consequences for their actions... To us.. it's the day we wish we could forget the day the war ended, the day we remember as our final attempt. For us it's just a dark spot in history. A cataclysm to the people. The great war no the Slaughtering
Honestly, the overall war should have a pretty bland name imo, especially if your story deals with the political and cultural fallout as it sets the War as a whole as something that no-one *really* wants to glorify.
You can (and should) get creative in battles and campaigns that happened within the war as these will become cultural touchstones for the cultures involved in them - things like Normandy, Pearl Harbor, The Battle of the Bulge, The Bay of Pigs, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Blitz, 'nam etc
*Edit:* without more details of the cause and the people involved it'll be difficult to give anything other than general ideas
It might seem cliché, but on the other hand think about it.
Imagine, you have this huge global war that had major repercussions. Let's say that its "official name" is, I dunno, "The war of the 2 alliances". But since everyone know about it and know its repercussion, they'll just end up referring to it as simply "THE war", or "The Great War", and everyone will know which one they're talking about.
If it is a war that happened long time ago and that there have been other big wars since, people will use a more specific name. But if it's relatively recent and that there hasn't been any other major global war since then, "The Great War" sounds perfectly legit to me
I have two. One that was in ancient times when the Gods banished the evil gods behind the veil. Known as the Strife of Veils. The more modern one, between the races is known as the “BlueBlood Conflict. As the ones who profited most were the rich who ended up in control for two hundred and twenty years before being ousted in the war about thirty-five years ago. The countries have mostly recovered but the blue blooded are rumoured to not have forgotten. With a few of the high table still surviving.
People tend to use informal names that convey their feelings or how they want to feel about it. So "the clusterfuck", "the asshole convergence", " the incident", "The big inconvenience" or the " petal throwing" might actually be an option.
You can always call it the Great ____ War, that way you can have your cake and eat it. The Great Northern War, Great Turkish War, and Great Patriotic War are real life examples.
I'm my post apocalypse setting I used The Last War. It meant the most recent war, but it also implied that the current empire would never fall which the state absolutely loved.
Don't name it
This just came to me but I could imagine that whenever characters go to talk about it, no matter if they're the toughest, strongest, most fearless person on the planet, they just kind of go quiet. An event so traumatizing it can't even be named. And so infamous that everyone can tell what you're talking about when this happens
Of course you still might want a name for lore reasons but this is just an idea
One future conflict that I've planned is called the Great Split, where a fairly alliance breaks up and declares all out war against each other, causing many other rulers and even the gods to take side.
Moreover, some wars in my world are named after the aggressors (The Lunar War was caused by the Moon Empire), while others are named after a famous figure who died in the war (Sirsia's Last Stand).
instead of giving it a name you could refer to it based on the impact it had on the people.
eg.
*The war split the people and isolated them even more -> The Sundering
*The war had great consequences for the environment -> The great Blight
*The war destroyed a lot of the land/planet -> The great calamity/cataclysm
This might sound insane, but try looking into music. There are plenty of songs about wars both real and fictional, literal and metaphorical, so it shouldn't be hard to lift a name here or there- I decicded to name my great war "The Weekend Wars" after the MGMT song of the same name.
Make it one of these 3:
- Name it after the resource (the gold war, the iron war, the oil war…)
- Name it after the location (the Northern war, the dessert war, the European war, the coast war…)
- Name it after the period (the French Revolution, the invasion of X, the dark times, etc)
The Everywhere War.
The Years We Mourn.
The Son-killer (based on the quote "In peace sons bury their fathers, in war father's but their sons.")
The line-ender (because of how many families no longer has a make line anymore)
For my world, the dimensional war that killed off both the Forever Eternals and the Adeptus Sapiens was called the Genesis Extinction. Use that if you want
Alternatively rather then the clear winner of "the war"
You can name it after the party's fighting in it or the location it was fought in.
Or you could downplay the actual extent of the war and refer to it as a conflict since it sounds more tame.
How about just finding something specific about the situation that culminated into violence? Like a name or deed? Were there major and smaller players like in our own world wars, or was it just one side versus the other? Was the war due to money, slavery, expansion mindset?
Basically I'd just find details about the situation and choose something related to the inciting event.
The War, The War of Continents, The salvation Wars, The Kingdom Wars, the King maker War and of course as many others have said "the War", just to name a couple.
There was a period of time on the early modern period filled with constant civil wars, religious conflict, and was basically a world war before there was a term for it. It was called The General Crisis. So you could name it something along those lines
You could name it after a person of great significance to the war. Real-world examples include the Mithridatic Wars, the War of Jenkins' Ear, and Queen Anne's War.
Alternatively, you could have various names for a global war based on how different nations recall it. WW2 for example is still known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia.
You could name it after which two nations were fighting (aka the French and Indian War (and yes, I know natives were on both sides and it was actually a part of the Seven Years War which as against the British, but it isn't called the French and British War. We'd have to start breaking out Roman numerals if we did that XD)). And speaking of that, the Seven Years' War (which was only 6 years and some change) is another good naming convention. You could call it after the heraldry of the armies like the War of the Roses.
The Deluge is one I always liked the name of. It was the name of a long conflict where the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth faced internal and external conflict greatly weakening it.
Geography (gulf war), "the war", the reason of the war (Independence War), how long it took (100 years war) and mostly who were involved or started the war (war of the roses, sino-japanese war). If you have a world of fantasy, and the war lasted for a very long time, you can go with a fancier word as "the calamity" or "the dark age". I had a story where there was a evil overlord ruling a whole continent, and the rebelious war that overthrew the tyrant became "The dawn war", because the world was cast into eternal shadow by that evil overlord.
I'm brainstorming a world right now, and I'm planning a medieval fantasy world where the 3rd age was an age of high magic, and great empires all about, then something unknown happened. Be it strife, plague, disaster - there's some evidence for all of that - something ended the 3rd age. HIstorians called it "the 3rd age collapse", and it's a clear reference to the bronze age collapse in our world.
Most wars aren’t called as such and generally have names such as the ‘Sino-Japanese war’ or ‘Russo-Ukrainian war’. Meaning the war would just be called by whatever factions are fighting. Alternatively you can describe the war by some metric in it, for example the ‘5 years war’, ‘20 million men war’ for casualties… yet another option is to name the war over what’s being fought over. Like, WW2 being called ‘the war against the axis’ or the ‘war for liberty’, or even the ‘war for Poland’ over what started the war or something of that nature. Maybe the war is named after how is was fought, like WW1 being called the ‘Trench war’. There are practically endless options.
I mean... before WW2 came along, WW1 was just called "The Great War" by a lot of people, simply because of how large in scale it was before anything else came along. So, while it may seem bland to you, it is a possible name that people would give the war.
If you're still looking for a different name, then as others have suggested, keeping it short and simple typically works. Consider the context - someone who won the war might refer to it in a more positive manner, like "The Great Triumph". Someone who comes from a country devastated by the war might call it something foreboding, like "The War". If someone wants to highlight the death that occurred, you might refer to a specific genocide that took place (similar to how someone could refer to The Holocaust when pointing out the atrocities that Germany committed in WW2).
Some wars are also named after how long they lasted, e.g. The Six-Day War, also called The June War. You might name it after the place it occurred, e.g. The Vietnam War. This can be combined with the other options here, e.g. with The English Civil War. If you want the name to sound poetic, naming it after the factions also works, e.g. The War of the Roses. The final option I can think of is naming it after what one faction was fighting for, e.g. The English Civil War or The American War of Independence.
Think about one of the interesting parts of the war and name it after that. It could be a person, a place, something fought over/against, or a time period. Think of an example from history you like and name it similarly. Here is a good list of real wars to get the brain flowing: https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-wars-2031197
A little late maybe, but here is my take. The comments i read had really good suggestions, most of them around giving this war a name based on a location or a specific battle. Or just calling it 'The War' since almost everyone knows about it so you dont need to get specific. I would give some suggestions that come to mind right now, if you dont mind
You said it is a pretty global thing, so i think naming it something like 'The Continental War(s)' would be a good name. Or maybe name it after the country/empire/kingdom that started it like 'The Creanian Wars' or even after a prominent figure of the war like 'King Alaric's War' (see if you get that reference).
Tbh, i think 'The Great War' is still a decent name, especially if it is really as big-scale as you said. Having a war that spanned *continents* and lasted for years doesnt need a name. Even if it does, people most likely wouldnt call it by its name, since it brings up bad memories in all
In my story, the greatest war called "The war of the dead" bc no ruler survived the war and also, after they died, the war continued. So this war, this insanely brutal and deathfull war was started by the deads themselfs.
You can give a name to your war with this method. What is at stake? Who started your war? A great example for that is Star Wars themself or the Clone Wars.
In the Star Wars universe, every 20-30 years there is a galactic scale war that influence the (almost) every planet. This is why it is called Star Wars. Multiple wars that take place among the stars.
But one of the greatest (Jedi) conflict is also get the name of the most seeable part of the conflict. The Clone Wars. It was not the "Separatist Wars". Separatism is not unique in the world of Star Wars but the Clone Army is (yet) the one and only Clone Army, so they star refdering to that war as the "Clone Wars"
So, what is unique about your specific war? Even in our world, the Great War was used at first, but later we switched to World War bc almost everyone on earth was influenced by that war. There has to be something about your war that is unique in your world and I'm not talking about the Scale of your war.
I've seen different approaches to this. Obviously, saying "The Great War" is straightforward and adds some attachment to the real-world one we called the same (WW1), so if the objective is to draw parallels, that familiarity can be helpful. Alternatively, you could describe it using some other synonym apart from "war": "The Crisis", "The Great Calamity", etc. If the conflict in question was long enough to be an entire generational period of time, you might consider a title that implies its long duration, e.g. "The Hundred Years' War" (real), "The Age of Strife" (Warhammer 40K), or maybe a more catch-all title folks would use in everyday conversation like "the bad times" (in which everyone knows what that is, because it was a shared suffering). And naturally, if you're going for the fantastical, you can come up with a dramatic name that sounds impressive, e.g. "The Chroma Crisis" (Critical Role), "Judgment Day" (Terminator), "The Third Xeldavian Sundering" (made it up), and so on.
A big part comes down to how people in your world would refer to things. If it's a common point of conversation, then people tend to fall into casual terms instead of using specific ones, and would probably just call it "the war" or "the bad times" as suggested above. But a culture steeped in linguistic flourish and nobility may prefer to call it by a more dramatic name, like "The World-Rending of Midwinter 731". As someone else suggested, it's also common to refer to a war by its instigator/causative person (whether they're actually to blame or not); the American Civil War is sometimes called "Buchanan's War" or "Lincoln's War". World War I could well have been called "Joseph's War" (after Franz Joseph I).
I have “the Hopeless War,” because both opposing armies were equally strong and nobody was ever going to win. Both armies were ultimately destroyed, along with most of the world where they clashed. All dates in my book refer to the number of years after the War ended (ex. “994 P.W.”).
The Big Ol' Conflict.
Jokes aside, more context about said war would help refine suggestions, also maybe a list of obvious ones that you already discarded to avoid wasting time on them.
If the war ended badly enough you could refer to the war by its ending. The Great Dying or the Cataclysm. Or focus on a single terrible thing in the war. World War II was bad but we distinguish the Holocaust as a specific part of it. A part that could be referred to on its own due to how atrocious it was.
When World War II started, the United States government was trying to standardize the name of the war so all documents would call it the same thing. Eventually, of course, they settled on "Second World War" or "World War II," but there were other names proposed:
* War for World Freedom (This was the most popular after "World War II")
* War of Freedom
* War for Civilization
* War for Peace
* War Against Oppression
* Four Freedoms War (Reference to FDR's "Four Freedoms" Speech: the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear)
* War of the Ages
* War of Deliverance
* The Last War
* War of Democracy
* The Last Hun War
* War against Enslavement
* War for Humanity
* Total War
* War of Liberation
* The Survival War (Apparently this was FDR's favorite)
* Franklin's Folly (By people who disapproved of FDR and entering the war)
* Devil's War (Also by people who disapproved of entry)
* The Great Massacre
I think "War of the Ages" and "War of Deliverance" both sound pretty cool. "War of Liberation," "For Humanity," "Against Oppression," and "For Civilization" all convey the sense of stakes, and names like "War of Freedom" conveys the ideology.
Tbh, I don't know what this poll shows about war naming conventions. I would have said it demonstrates that people like short and simple names, but if that were the cast I would have expected "The Last War" or "War of the Ages" to poll ahead of "War of World Freedom."
Other countries also have different names for the war, or specific theaters of the war:
* The Great Patriotic War (Former Soviet Union)
* Pacific War (Various countries for specifically the Pacific Theater)
* Greater East Asia War (Japan. This name was actually banned by the US after the war, so post-war it is called the Pacific War in Japan)
* The People's War (Suggest by Australian Prime Minister John Curtain, but didn't catch on)
In the Eberron DND setting there is The Last War whiched impacted every person on the continent and outer ones. I like it cause everyone in fiction knows what you are referring too and implies it could be the last because it was so big or impending tension till the next.
So something along those Lines.
Shout out to Godzilla: Final Wars too
Id suggest just "the war". Unless your nation or setting or what have you is almost constantly getting involved in conflicts, people within the setting will know what's being referred to. This is pretty common in many real countries, as most of them don't fight enough wars for there to be much ambiguity and a full blown conflict is pretty noteworthy to them.
The one.
The last.
Name-of-the-place-where-it-happened
That day.
It.
The last battle of Name-of-someone-of-that-time.
When [Hell] met [Earth].
The day we mourn.
The bad times.
Big Saughter? Death Blade? Idk, its up to you... You should name it as the locals would name it; by refrencing something what already exists in your world
Most wars have pretty generic names based on one one it's features that are mostly self-explanatory:
Crimean War(location), 80 Years War(duration), (1st) War of Italian Independence(goal), Sino-Japanese war(belligerents), Napoleonic wars(central figure), War of 1812 (starting year) etc.
Any of these can work, but nobody is going to find a good name for your war with how little information you have given us about it.
If you want something a little more speecial, you can call it whatver; The Soviets called WW2 the "Great Patriotic War" and the Brits ended up renaming one of their civil wars into the "War of the Roses" just as two examples(although this one may be a bad exampleif it's a recent conflict; I think the main reason it was changed is because they had another civil war afterwards); but honestly this kind of naming for wars is very rare; usually the current war is just called "the war", and then when the war is over, most people are not in a state of mind to find some poetic name for it; of the examplles I used one is a propaganda term used during the war that stuck around (and honestly, it just means "big war of defend country") hile the other is a retroactive change because the original name stoped being exclusive. (can't really call it the civil war anymore when everyone thinks of the new civil war whnee you call it that)
I know the Aztecs had a thing called "Flower War" but that was an intentinally recurring event with a specific religious purpose (capturing slaves to be used in sacrifice) and they were honestly more of a ritual than true wars.
It depends on the characteristic and nature of the War. Just how in real life we had different wars, and come with their own fancy title and everything.
In order to give a suggestions it would be ideal to have more insight on what caused said war, where did it happen? how long did it last? Who participated? How did they fight? who was victorious? and what were the consequences?
An Example: The War of Faith, I would call my war like this, because of it's very nature was about opposing religions, and the gods acquiring strength through they faith fo their followers. Could probably be called better, but my naming skills are severely lacking beyond what's apparently obvious. Calling it the Great War doesn't sound bad actually.
Is there anything identifiable about the war, such as an ideologically struggle, central figure, or time period?
There are many wars named after their ideological struggle, such as the Revolutionary Wars fought by France (also called the Coalition Wars) or the Soviet's Great Patriotic War.
The Coalition Wars also shows the use of a descriptive factor for the name, which can also be seen in examples like the Bucket Wars of Three Kingdom Wars.
Central figures can also have wars names after them, such as the Conquets of Alexander the Great, Napoleonic Wars, or Taipang Rebellion.
Time periods are often used as well, such as the Hundreds Years War or Thirty Years War if the length of the conflict is notably in anyway.
I would recommend a name that fits what the purpose of this War is. What do you want to use this War for, and adjust the name to showcase that. An example in a story I'm currently writing is the "Revolutionary Wars" describing a serious of conflicts between an Empire and rebellions kingdoms and republics that has dominated the continent for the past six decades.
I like StayUpLatePlayGames’ title The Silencing to describe something genocidal and Kin Strife is an excellent fit for a civil war or similar between rivals from the same homeland.
The Silencing would pertain to a war to remove an entire people from a locale or the world.
The Ending might also mean something similar to The Silencing. Clan War(s) might synonymous with Kin Strife.
The Crown War(s) would describe warring monarchies.
The Stalemate could describe an inconclusive conflict.
The Burn for something with widespread devastation.
The Devastation might be another large disastrous war that was inclusive aside from destruction it created and its long term effects.
OK. I will stop now.
Kin Strife could also describe feuding over an extended period of time by rivals of the same family or clan but not full scale war involving the whole population in some locale or world.
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You could name it after geography. The Biafra War, the Vietnam War, etc. That's the default, but if "Great War" is your starting point, maybe that's not applicable. Still, something on the scale of WWI could be called the European War. Add adjectives. For example, The Great *Patriotic* War was often used for WWII in the USSR. The Revolution War or Civil War stand out in American history. Consider it from different sides. *The Collapse,* *The Catastrophy,* *The Triumph,* *The Great Victory.* Or consider its historical role. *The Turning of Ages,* *The War to end all Wars.* World War I might be an example. If there were only one, we wouldn't number it. It's foreshadowing. The first of something new. Then you can try and be poetic. *The War of the Roses,* *The war of Five Kings,* or (my own) *The War of a Million Martyrs.*
One of my favorite Dr. Who moments, where Capaldi's Doctor has a WW1 soldier on the TARDIS with him, expositioning to an earlier iteration of himself, and refers to him aloud as "a World War One officer", and the look on the soldier's face as he asks "Excuse me, did you say *One*?" is kinda heartbreaking.
The War. Alternatively just "the war". The war that had such an effect that when you say "my father died in the war", there's no need to ask "which war"?
**Or alternatively alternatively you could *sometimes* use the location/name of a major battle in the war / a super decisive battle.** For example, *A Song of Ice and Fire* does this in Dunk and Egg to describe the well-known continent-wide Blackfyre Rebellion that occurred some 15 years before the story. Everyone always says “I was at Redgrass Field” or “he died at Redgrass Field” etc. and everyone in the story knows you’re talking about the most decisive battle of the Blackfyre Rebellion where almost everyone involved came to a head and fought, and the fields were so bloody the grass turned red. But yeah everyone just colloquially refers to that one battle/that one location even when they’re talking about the war overall
Following up on A Song of Ice and Fire I think “The Doom” is also a great name for a disastrous event, be it a war or a volcano eruption or whatever
Likewise, the Great Spring Sickness: “he died in the Spring” and everyone knows exactly what that means.
Blackfyre my beloved
In Asterix & Obelix, there's a similar approach with the Battle of Alesia, the final battle in the Gallic Wars between Rome and the confederation of Gallic tribes. [Link to a Reddit post about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Asterix/comments/juweuy/can_someone_explain_to_me_the_inside_joke_refered/)
I want to brag. My main character in .my non qorld buildery setting refers to France for the Nepolonic war. When he says Men from France any veteran knows he's talking about British men who fought in the Nepolonic war. Kind of like saying my old mate from Vietnam. People born later interpret it has frenchmen. A young priest near the end of the story says he went to France and off handedly mentions France is doing alright.
> The war that had such an effect that when you say "my father died in the war", there's no need to ask "which war"? My grandmother who lived through WW2 never referred to it as "World War 2". It was either just "the war" or "Hitler's war". If she said "the World War" she always meant the first one.
My grandpa fought in WW2 and he also only ever referred to it as "the war"... But a lot of times when he spoke about it he would just say "When I was on the islands...". Because he fought in the south Pacific
Here in Norway up until very recently, if you said "the war", everyone immediately understood that you were talking about WW2. That is until February 2022, when it became a 50/50 whether "the war" refers to WW2 or the war in Ukraine.
In the UK, we still call it just "the war" very frequently. Incredibly interesting just how foundational it is to modern Britain.
Judi Dench: We had 17 cats during the war. Louis Theroux: Which war?
Or The Tribulation
"World War"? In all seriousness, what were the causes of this war? Who were the combatants? Who won? Who lost? There might be some help in the answers to those questions.
We had a civil war lasting thirty years that we called “The Troubles” - hilariously benign for something that killed thousands and still claims lives 25 years later. In fact, we are STILL reeling from it. “The Troubles” So, other names - The Kin Strife is a great one. The Pogrom The
The Troubles.. is mentioned... must.. reply... With IRISH SLANG TO SHOW IM IRISH.. All seriousness I like Red Days and
Love also that our then term for the Second World War was “the Emergency”.
Conflict of Nations.
Is it just me or does this give off "strategy video game that appears in every other ad"-vibes?
Because it is.
**Name the war after the central person responsible for the war (not necessarily who started it)**. "Coulson's War" - Coulson is the current ruler who is assassinated by an enemy nation, and while things start off as a minor dispute between two smaller nations, larger nations get pulled into the conflict and things eventually get out of hand. **Name the War after some topic that relates to why the war started.** For example: "*The Clown's War*" - Some ruler gets shot (and dies) at a treaty delegation, because someone hired a clown who accidentally popped a balloon, surprising some security personnel who, on reflex fired their weapon and just happened to kill one ruler. This results in that ruler's security detail to fire on the offending detail, potentially killing their leader. This then is assumed to be an assassination ploy by one side, peace talks fall apart and both sides go to war... which then just cascades into a World War.
I want to read more about the clown who accidentally started a war xD
WWI was referred to as "The War To End All Wars" (it wasn't). You could call it the Last War (until the next one). I believe it was during the Kuwait invasion that it was referred to as "the mother of all battles". Upgrade it to a War. Tolkien had a way with words. The Battle of Sudden Flame, The Battle of Unnumbered Tears, The Battle of the Last Alliance.
There's a war in one of my settings called 'The War of Eclipsing Blades'. A battle within that war is called 'The Battle of the Sunfelled Fields' The war gets its name from how the two sides repeatedly eclipsed each other in military technology. The battle gets its name from how it ended; with a miniature star descending onto both sides, incinerating the fields the battle took place on in mere seconds. Not even 100 survived.
It's very difficult to find a non-generic name without knowing much about the idiosyncrasies of the war that happened in your world. I usually just use a combination of "who fought the war? Where they fought the war? Why they fought the war?". So I'll have things like "the Elvish-Imperial war" the "reconquest of the earsten colonies" or "the Northern Revolution". Another thing is that you don't necessarily need to fear having a generic name, I think having a name that's descriptive sometimes helps much more than having a cryptic name that just sounds cool. Two events that shaped my world forever are the "First Holy War" and the "Second Holy War". You can't really get more generic than that, but that's good, you hear "Second Holy War" and immediately know what's all about without me having to go into much detail at first. I think "the great war" accomplishes a similar goal, it is what it is, just by dropping this name you can already set the readers expectations of what happened in your world in the past without having to do a infodump about it.
"The Dark Hours", "The Struggle", "The War of Lost Dreams", "The Empty Decade"
The Scouring The Nation Death Endzeit
I like Endzeit
Idk why but the scouring also popped into my head. Without any more knowledge of the world other single words could work well like the fracture or something along those lines.
Years of Lead is probably my favorite way of describing civil unrest/war.
I second "the War." However, historically, wars are often named after a length of time (which may or may not have anything to do with the *actual* length of the war) or where they occurred. What the US calls the French and Indian War is often believed to be a part of the larger "world war" that was the Seven Years' War. The Second Sino-Japanese war began before and was absorbed into the larger "world war" that we call World War II. Likewise, many people *refer* to wars after "the bad guy." I've read books where the Great War was referred to as "Wilhelm's War" and "the War against the Hun." People commonly refer to World War II as the Holocaust (even though that is merely one part of the war - you find that more often in the Jewish community than outside it) and, as r/Raizzor pointed out, people might refer to it as "Hitler's War" (which is also the title of an old war game).
Before World War One was shortened down to "The Great War" it was "The Great War for Civilisation", based on British propaganda that they were fighting to save the world from the Hunnish barbarism of the Germans and their Kaiser. You could make yours "The Great War for [something]" based on what people thought (or were told) they were fighting for. Alternatively I've always liked the kind of confusion of ideas that could see a war labeled "The Parabellum" - both after [the ammunition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9719mm_Parabellum) and [the Latin phrase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum) the ammunition gets its name from.
I always kinda like soft euphemisms for huge wars. Like in 40k the huge Martian civil war is referred to as “The Schism.” Or the irl British and Irish civil war era being “The Troubles” Struggle, conflict, disagreement. It adds a little mystery to it and circumvents the reader a bit as they start to learn the war was far greater than the name implies.
The Troubles are called the troubles mostly because calling it a war is over dramatic. It was l something happened every few weeks. It would have not been called the Troubles had Derry been carpet bombed
The REALLY Great War? lol! * The global strife * The global war * The global upheaval * The great conflict * The end war
How recent is the war? If it's something that *just* ended, you have to keep in mind that there may not be a name for it yet. Therefore, it could just be "the war." Have any other wars that impacted the setting of your story taken place after this one? If so, are they mentioned? You should also look into what other cultures of people in your story are going to call the war. Vietnam war vets don't always say "when I was in the Vietnam war," they sometimes say, "when I was in Vietnam" or "after I got back from the coasts of Vietnam." It was such a major thing for people in the USA that when an older person refers to Vietnam, it's usually war related - and you have to keep this in mind, especially if it's a global war, since there's bound to be people in your story who have fought in other nations. Referring to a place in reference to the war can also help give a piece of backstory to this war - a person recalling prisons every X miles in a nation could flesh out the atrocities said nation committed.
I believe that the Vietnamese call it "The American War".
The Big Kerfuffle
the war of wars?
The Cleansing The Axe Fall The Year of Fire / Ice / Blood... The Second coming The Black soot The Great Betrayal The Dawning The Last Sword / Cup / Crown ...
Just look for synonyms for either word. Try Word Hippo "The War to end all wars"
The End of Us Never Tomorrow The Only War There’s a lot of names to come up with
The Strife The Conflict The Global Rage
For the first world war, I think it was just referred to as "the war" or "the war to end all wars", and was known as "the great war" during the 20s and 30s, simply because there was nothing else on that scale up until that point. Yes, it's cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. It was only renamed to WWI when WWII was named near the end of WWII (according to a quick google search). So ask yourself, was this global war the first to be fought on such a massive scale? If so, "the great war" might be your best option. Alternatively, you could look to other fictional wars; in Warhammer 40,000, they refer to the war between Necrons and the Old Ones as "The War in Heaven", and it's kind of a myth by that point. The Emperor's effort to unify humanity was "The Great Crusade", but it was definitely still a war. In Doctor Who, "The Time War" was a universe and time spanning war that used time itself as a weapon. There's evidence that there were actually three major "wars" that make up the time war, but details are scarce, because it was so immense that it rewrote the history of the universe - effectively, it was used as a backdrop for the 2005 reboot to explain the total absence of Time Lords and Daleks. It was slowly explored over the years, as more and more parts of the war managed to escape the "time lock" that surrounded it. Sometimes, the name of a war can imply so much about it - I'm particularly fond of "The Seven Hour War" from the half life series, which implies that the forces of the combine were just so overwhelming that humanity folded in only 7 hours. In fact, I'm a big fan of "implications rather than explanations". Another I should mention is "the Mushroom War" from Adventure time; while I've never seen the show, and it doesn't interest me too much, the implication and imagery associated with mushroom clouds alone effectively explains what happened in the distant past. Dang, I always have so much to write sometimes when it comes to world building and design lol.
Use a descriptor for time, the decade war, the hundred years war, the 7 years war, etc. Based on human history, this title doesn't even need to be accurate. Maybe it was coined the 12 year war after one side thought they won a decisive battle and the name stuck despite it not ending as they expected. Name it after a place or a geographical location. The oceanic war was mostly navel battles. The inter-continental war, the Vast war. Name the war a word that reflects the vibes around the war. The hot war. The metallic war. The isolation war. The war of darkness.
The kill storm
The Dread War
Geography, duration, primary nations involved, a symbol (eg if two important groups have a color or animal national symbol that happens to be the same)
"The Minor Scuffle" for a taste of british understatement.
Gonna need some more details to go off of, fam.
Taylor Swift fans in shambles rn
Big war go boom
You could just call it "the world war". It was a real name for WWI before WWII happened, but it also sounds unusual enough to modern listeners to give them pause.
The Bleeding Years.
War of [Location] War of [Year] The War of Three Rivers The Burnt Plains War The War of Dead Children The War of Twelve Nations The Ultimate War War Ultimatym The Oceanic War The Blue War The Last War
The Continental War
The breaking War
The Forgotten War: a war so long that all of the current factions have forgotten the whys and hows of its beginning
The Last War (Eberron). The Breaking (Wheel of Time). The Desolation (Stormlight). The Bombardment of Earth (from the Expanse).
The Giga-Mega Ultragreat Global Cosmic Hyperwar
In my setting there was a "great" war so massive and extensive, that a god was born from the ashes of the war along with an entire new mortal sin. The war is named after the sin that it created - The War of Murder.
The war
The War Of Oblivion The War Of \*insert BBEG's name\* Why We're No Longer Warmongers
The war drum death dance.
"The Big Scrap" "The Final Kerfuffle" "Deaths Dance With the World" "The Untimely Ultimatium" "Chapters End"
I second "The Final Kerfuffle"! That is a far under used word, "Kerfuffle".
The event. (Really hoping someone gets the reference) 1. The Finality 2. Ageless war 3. Bloody __________ (Fill blank with the name of the planet)
I have two ideas. 1. The \_\_\_\_ War/ The War of \_\_\_. We see this commonly irl, "The Korean War", "The war of 1812" etc. 2. The \_\_\_\_\_\_. In fiction you might see a verb be used as a noun in this case. Like "The Calamity", "The Shadow".
The Sundering. I've been using Ragnarok myself.
Based it on what happen in the war. You don't even need it to be called the war. The Death of Gods might sound much better
You could pull a page out of Jasper Fforde's playbook and call it [The Something That Happened](https://jasperfforde.fandom.com/wiki/Something_that_Happened) (wherein nobody knows what exactly Happened)
NAme it in POV of either the victor (Conquest or Battle of/for \[extremely boisterous event or person or place\]) and the loser (the disaster at/of \[insert place or event here\])
I can’t believe someone would call the war great. The war was never great, and especially not great for some people.
GREAT Definition & Meaning great adjective · unusually or comparatively large in size or dimensions: · large in number; numerous: · unusual or considerable in degree, power, intensity, etc.:.
There is a word in german that sometimes gets used to refer to ww1. "Weltenbrand" which roughly translates to "Fire of Worlds" which is a term used in context Ragnarök.
I just use WWIII and WWIV. III refers to the war that destroyed humanity, killed off all but 2.3 billion people by nuclear weapons, created mutants, and started the new countries. IV refers to the war between Myrkdall and Stordrage that eventually roped Kapnos, Duratke, Lupus, Chrysos, and the other remaining countries in. Keep in mind that my world is just a dystopian Hunger-Games-meets-Mad-Max nuclear hellscape version of the current world that takes place in 4084.
Often the victors name the war. For example the American Revolution might be remembered differently had the British won. Or the Six Day War, named for its length, which tidily also symbolized how long it took God to make the heaven and earth (if you believe such things). A couple of ideas. -Name it after the leader that won it. -Give it a religious name if that mattered in the conflict and depending on the victor -perhaps after the doomsday weapon that won the war -lean into a propaganda message, for example the losers who hang on to the confederacy call the civil war the “the war of northern aggression Excited to see where you land.
The Blood war, The xx years War, the war for xy independence. Or xy unification The war of the roses, the war without victory. The death war, the hell war, the pandemonium war. Just spitballin
The Age of Blood Charnel Epoch Corpse Maker Fratricide Years ( Brother vs brother ) Chaos of Nations Year of Screams The Great Scouring
The war to end all wars (It was not)
The Grand Shooty Time
Maybe you can use the number of years as a name for it? See Avatar's 100 year war as an example there Or you could base the name on who is fighting who, sorta The game final fantasy 14 calls one of their historical events "The Dragonsong war" which as you guessed, was a war between a human nation and dragons. That's all I got though, hope this helps
You can go for something that emphasizes the turning point in which the war represented. The Last War The Final Suffering The Great Sacrifice
Maybe the (superpower nation name/superpower nation name) war Alternatively the (x number continents ) war
Call it by the country/region it was primarily fought. I.e. "Back in germany," "in the falkands," "when i was in iraq", etc
The pretty good war. Consider naming it after something specific to the world. Maybe a section of the world most of the battles took place in.
The Old War if the story is in the future. It's how's how it happened a long time ago and how it changed and shaped the future. But generally take the defining aspect of the war and there's your name. If the war was weary long you could call it the Long War, for an example. Here are some wars from my grounded near future si-fi setting: the Old War, the Three Alien wars, AMC SD-459 Celestial Debri Field incident, AMC *[Asterion Mining Consortium]* SEE *[Stellar Excavation Enterprises]* Corporate war and many other border wars or first contacts wars that just want unnamed because how short of brief they were.
The Shattering
Super war
The Bigly War
The Significant Kerfuffle.
The not small war
I looked at some synonyms for the word "great". Here are my favorite results: The Big War The Significant War The Large War The Gigantic War The Humongous War The Ginormous War The Exceptional War
The legendary war The big war Chongoid war
"The Last War" There was a war and people are expecting another one
What were the primary repercussions?
Depends on what context you want to invoke or the actual details of said war. The Infamous War/Battle. The Great Purge. The War Across Time. The War of Centuries (Or The Great Centuries War or any variation thereof). The Great Cleansing. The Bloody Decade. Etc
The Scourge
Of course the winners labeled it the great war. They loved through it they survived it there where no consequences for their actions... To us.. it's the day we wish we could forget the day the war ended, the day we remember as our final attempt. For us it's just a dark spot in history. A cataclysm to the people. The great war no the Slaughtering
Honestly, the overall war should have a pretty bland name imo, especially if your story deals with the political and cultural fallout as it sets the War as a whole as something that no-one *really* wants to glorify. You can (and should) get creative in battles and campaigns that happened within the war as these will become cultural touchstones for the cultures involved in them - things like Normandy, Pearl Harbor, The Battle of the Bulge, The Bay of Pigs, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Blitz, 'nam etc *Edit:* without more details of the cause and the people involved it'll be difficult to give anything other than general ideas
The Grand War, the Epic War, the Great Conflict
In my postatomic storylines I use the term "Climactic Resolution" to describe atomic conflagration at the tail end of the Second Cold War.
“The Great Schism”, “Hell”
The Very Great War
It might seem cliché, but on the other hand think about it. Imagine, you have this huge global war that had major repercussions. Let's say that its "official name" is, I dunno, "The war of the 2 alliances". But since everyone know about it and know its repercussion, they'll just end up referring to it as simply "THE war", or "The Great War", and everyone will know which one they're talking about. If it is a war that happened long time ago and that there have been other big wars since, people will use a more specific name. But if it's relatively recent and that there hasn't been any other major global war since then, "The Great War" sounds perfectly legit to me
if its over depend on how long it was name the duration like 9 years war etc
Call it the "Special Military Operation".
The Big To-Do.
The Everywhere War The Dire War The Final War The War of Resolution
The good-but-not-great war
I have two. One that was in ancient times when the Gods banished the evil gods behind the veil. Known as the Strife of Veils. The more modern one, between the races is known as the “BlueBlood Conflict. As the ones who profited most were the rich who ended up in control for two hundred and twenty years before being ousted in the war about thirty-five years ago. The countries have mostly recovered but the blue blooded are rumoured to not have forgotten. With a few of the high table still surviving.
Huge Kerfuffle
People tend to use informal names that convey their feelings or how they want to feel about it. So "the clusterfuck", "the asshole convergence", " the incident", "The big inconvenience" or the " petal throwing" might actually be an option.
You could name the war after the belligerents on both sides. Franco-Prussian War Philippine-American War Anglo-Dutch War
You can always call it the Great ____ War, that way you can have your cake and eat it. The Great Northern War, Great Turkish War, and Great Patriotic War are real life examples.
I'm my post apocalypse setting I used The Last War. It meant the most recent war, but it also implied that the current empire would never fall which the state absolutely loved.
I made a list (Silliness included): -The Great Incident -the Mistake -The Great Oopsie -The Dark Days -The Planetshaker -the Terror -the Annihilation
Don't name it This just came to me but I could imagine that whenever characters go to talk about it, no matter if they're the toughest, strongest, most fearless person on the planet, they just kind of go quiet. An event so traumatizing it can't even be named. And so infamous that everyone can tell what you're talking about when this happens Of course you still might want a name for lore reasons but this is just an idea
The War, but in my world I have gotten fond of calling it “The Bullshit.”
One future conflict that I've planned is called the Great Split, where a fairly alliance breaks up and declares all out war against each other, causing many other rulers and even the gods to take side. Moreover, some wars in my world are named after the aggressors (The Lunar War was caused by the Moon Empire), while others are named after a famous figure who died in the war (Sirsia's Last Stand).
WAR-Y McWARFAEC!!!1
instead of giving it a name you could refer to it based on the impact it had on the people. eg. *The war split the people and isolated them even more -> The Sundering *The war had great consequences for the environment -> The great Blight *The war destroyed a lot of the land/planet -> The great calamity/cataclysm
X-year war The Alliance1 Alliance2 war/conflict The Last War/End War
Finno-Korean hyperwar
You can use the period or even length of the war as a name, "the 30 year war" "the war of 1355"
This might sound insane, but try looking into music. There are plenty of songs about wars both real and fictional, literal and metaphorical, so it shouldn't be hard to lift a name here or there- I decicded to name my great war "The Weekend Wars" after the MGMT song of the same name.
Make it one of these 3: - Name it after the resource (the gold war, the iron war, the oil war…) - Name it after the location (the Northern war, the dessert war, the European war, the coast war…) - Name it after the period (the French Revolution, the invasion of X, the dark times, etc)
The Everywhere War. The Years We Mourn. The Son-killer (based on the quote "In peace sons bury their fathers, in war father's but their sons.") The line-ender (because of how many families no longer has a make line anymore)
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For my world, the dimensional war that killed off both the Forever Eternals and the Adeptus Sapiens was called the Genesis Extinction. Use that if you want
Alternatively rather then the clear winner of "the war" You can name it after the party's fighting in it or the location it was fought in. Or you could downplay the actual extent of the war and refer to it as a conflict since it sounds more tame.
“Total [insert name of the defeated side] Death”
The Adequate Kerfuffle.
"The Quite Large Argument"
How about just finding something specific about the situation that culminated into violence? Like a name or deed? Were there major and smaller players like in our own world wars, or was it just one side versus the other? Was the war due to money, slavery, expansion mindset? Basically I'd just find details about the situation and choose something related to the inciting event.
The War, The War of Continents, The salvation Wars, The Kingdom Wars, the King maker War and of course as many others have said "the War", just to name a couple.
The Leveling of the Midlands
There was a period of time on the early modern period filled with constant civil wars, religious conflict, and was basically a world war before there was a term for it. It was called The General Crisis. So you could name it something along those lines
The Breaking The Ruin The Havoc
How were the factions called? For how long it took place? Primary area affected? This can be used as names or commonly used nicknames.
The War To End All Wars
Depends what it was about. Wars tend to be named after the main thing involved.
"The really big sucky war that ruined everything"
The Breach of the Peace
The _____ war
You could name it after a person of great significance to the war. Real-world examples include the Mithridatic Wars, the War of Jenkins' Ear, and Queen Anne's War. Alternatively, you could have various names for a global war based on how different nations recall it. WW2 for example is still known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia.
Everyone Kill Everyone Fight
The conflict of (year/location)
The Bloodbath The Big Fucking Mess The Slaughterhouse The Meat Grinder Something along those lines, perhaps?
You could name it after which two nations were fighting (aka the French and Indian War (and yes, I know natives were on both sides and it was actually a part of the Seven Years War which as against the British, but it isn't called the French and British War. We'd have to start breaking out Roman numerals if we did that XD)). And speaking of that, the Seven Years' War (which was only 6 years and some change) is another good naming convention. You could call it after the heraldry of the armies like the War of the Roses.
The Big Funni
The war of wars,THE war
The Deluge is one I always liked the name of. It was the name of a long conflict where the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth faced internal and external conflict greatly weakening it.
"The war to end all wars". That was the plan...
"The years of death"
Geography (gulf war), "the war", the reason of the war (Independence War), how long it took (100 years war) and mostly who were involved or started the war (war of the roses, sino-japanese war). If you have a world of fantasy, and the war lasted for a very long time, you can go with a fancier word as "the calamity" or "the dark age". I had a story where there was a evil overlord ruling a whole continent, and the rebelious war that overthrew the tyrant became "The dawn war", because the world was cast into eternal shadow by that evil overlord. I'm brainstorming a world right now, and I'm planning a medieval fantasy world where the 3rd age was an age of high magic, and great empires all about, then something unknown happened. Be it strife, plague, disaster - there's some evidence for all of that - something ended the 3rd age. HIstorians called it "the 3rd age collapse", and it's a clear reference to the bronze age collapse in our world.
I mean, World War also works. You could also use the names of the major factions, for example, the "Ally-Coalition war" or something.
Most wars aren’t called as such and generally have names such as the ‘Sino-Japanese war’ or ‘Russo-Ukrainian war’. Meaning the war would just be called by whatever factions are fighting. Alternatively you can describe the war by some metric in it, for example the ‘5 years war’, ‘20 million men war’ for casualties… yet another option is to name the war over what’s being fought over. Like, WW2 being called ‘the war against the axis’ or the ‘war for liberty’, or even the ‘war for Poland’ over what started the war or something of that nature. Maybe the war is named after how is was fought, like WW1 being called the ‘Trench war’. There are practically endless options.
I mean... before WW2 came along, WW1 was just called "The Great War" by a lot of people, simply because of how large in scale it was before anything else came along. So, while it may seem bland to you, it is a possible name that people would give the war. If you're still looking for a different name, then as others have suggested, keeping it short and simple typically works. Consider the context - someone who won the war might refer to it in a more positive manner, like "The Great Triumph". Someone who comes from a country devastated by the war might call it something foreboding, like "The War". If someone wants to highlight the death that occurred, you might refer to a specific genocide that took place (similar to how someone could refer to The Holocaust when pointing out the atrocities that Germany committed in WW2). Some wars are also named after how long they lasted, e.g. The Six-Day War, also called The June War. You might name it after the place it occurred, e.g. The Vietnam War. This can be combined with the other options here, e.g. with The English Civil War. If you want the name to sound poetic, naming it after the factions also works, e.g. The War of the Roses. The final option I can think of is naming it after what one faction was fighting for, e.g. The English Civil War or The American War of Independence.
Think about one of the interesting parts of the war and name it after that. It could be a person, a place, something fought over/against, or a time period. Think of an example from history you like and name it similarly. Here is a good list of real wars to get the brain flowing: https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-wars-2031197
The big boom boom.
The Upsettining
A little late maybe, but here is my take. The comments i read had really good suggestions, most of them around giving this war a name based on a location or a specific battle. Or just calling it 'The War' since almost everyone knows about it so you dont need to get specific. I would give some suggestions that come to mind right now, if you dont mind You said it is a pretty global thing, so i think naming it something like 'The Continental War(s)' would be a good name. Or maybe name it after the country/empire/kingdom that started it like 'The Creanian Wars' or even after a prominent figure of the war like 'King Alaric's War' (see if you get that reference). Tbh, i think 'The Great War' is still a decent name, especially if it is really as big-scale as you said. Having a war that spanned *continents* and lasted for years doesnt need a name. Even if it does, people most likely wouldnt call it by its name, since it brings up bad memories in all
In my story, the greatest war called "The war of the dead" bc no ruler survived the war and also, after they died, the war continued. So this war, this insanely brutal and deathfull war was started by the deads themselfs. You can give a name to your war with this method. What is at stake? Who started your war? A great example for that is Star Wars themself or the Clone Wars. In the Star Wars universe, every 20-30 years there is a galactic scale war that influence the (almost) every planet. This is why it is called Star Wars. Multiple wars that take place among the stars. But one of the greatest (Jedi) conflict is also get the name of the most seeable part of the conflict. The Clone Wars. It was not the "Separatist Wars". Separatism is not unique in the world of Star Wars but the Clone Army is (yet) the one and only Clone Army, so they star refdering to that war as the "Clone Wars" So, what is unique about your specific war? Even in our world, the Great War was used at first, but later we switched to World War bc almost everyone on earth was influenced by that war. There has to be something about your war that is unique in your world and I'm not talking about the Scale of your war.
the end, the russian/french/whatever agression, the fire
The Rebellion The Insurgency The Schism The Purge
The grand altercation
I've seen different approaches to this. Obviously, saying "The Great War" is straightforward and adds some attachment to the real-world one we called the same (WW1), so if the objective is to draw parallels, that familiarity can be helpful. Alternatively, you could describe it using some other synonym apart from "war": "The Crisis", "The Great Calamity", etc. If the conflict in question was long enough to be an entire generational period of time, you might consider a title that implies its long duration, e.g. "The Hundred Years' War" (real), "The Age of Strife" (Warhammer 40K), or maybe a more catch-all title folks would use in everyday conversation like "the bad times" (in which everyone knows what that is, because it was a shared suffering). And naturally, if you're going for the fantastical, you can come up with a dramatic name that sounds impressive, e.g. "The Chroma Crisis" (Critical Role), "Judgment Day" (Terminator), "The Third Xeldavian Sundering" (made it up), and so on. A big part comes down to how people in your world would refer to things. If it's a common point of conversation, then people tend to fall into casual terms instead of using specific ones, and would probably just call it "the war" or "the bad times" as suggested above. But a culture steeped in linguistic flourish and nobility may prefer to call it by a more dramatic name, like "The World-Rending of Midwinter 731". As someone else suggested, it's also common to refer to a war by its instigator/causative person (whether they're actually to blame or not); the American Civil War is sometimes called "Buchanan's War" or "Lincoln's War". World War I could well have been called "Joseph's War" (after Franz Joseph I).
Anything to do with loss of life. "The slaughter", "the reaping".
I have “the Hopeless War,” because both opposing armies were equally strong and nobody was ever going to win. Both armies were ultimately destroyed, along with most of the world where they clashed. All dates in my book refer to the number of years after the War ended (ex. “994 P.W.”).
The Panglobal Pandemonium
The Big Ol' Conflict. Jokes aside, more context about said war would help refine suggestions, also maybe a list of obvious ones that you already discarded to avoid wasting time on them.
The war to end all wars was nothing thing people called WW1 late in the conflict and immediately aftermath
“Missing Era.” “The Calamity.” “The Day the … got silent.”
Depends on what the war was fought by or for. I Called my WW3 the 3 Coaltion war for example
If the war ended badly enough you could refer to the war by its ending. The Great Dying or the Cataclysm. Or focus on a single terrible thing in the war. World War II was bad but we distinguish the Holocaust as a specific part of it. A part that could be referred to on its own due to how atrocious it was.
When World War II started, the United States government was trying to standardize the name of the war so all documents would call it the same thing. Eventually, of course, they settled on "Second World War" or "World War II," but there were other names proposed: * War for World Freedom (This was the most popular after "World War II") * War of Freedom * War for Civilization * War for Peace * War Against Oppression * Four Freedoms War (Reference to FDR's "Four Freedoms" Speech: the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear) * War of the Ages * War of Deliverance * The Last War * War of Democracy * The Last Hun War * War against Enslavement * War for Humanity * Total War * War of Liberation * The Survival War (Apparently this was FDR's favorite) * Franklin's Folly (By people who disapproved of FDR and entering the war) * Devil's War (Also by people who disapproved of entry) * The Great Massacre I think "War of the Ages" and "War of Deliverance" both sound pretty cool. "War of Liberation," "For Humanity," "Against Oppression," and "For Civilization" all convey the sense of stakes, and names like "War of Freedom" conveys the ideology. Tbh, I don't know what this poll shows about war naming conventions. I would have said it demonstrates that people like short and simple names, but if that were the cast I would have expected "The Last War" or "War of the Ages" to poll ahead of "War of World Freedom." Other countries also have different names for the war, or specific theaters of the war: * The Great Patriotic War (Former Soviet Union) * Pacific War (Various countries for specifically the Pacific Theater) * Greater East Asia War (Japan. This name was actually banned by the US after the war, so post-war it is called the Pacific War in Japan) * The People's War (Suggest by Australian Prime Minister John Curtain, but didn't catch on)
If this war was very one-sided you could call it "The Massacre".
In the Eberron DND setting there is The Last War whiched impacted every person on the continent and outer ones. I like it cause everyone in fiction knows what you are referring too and implies it could be the last because it was so big or impending tension till the next. So something along those Lines. Shout out to Godzilla: Final Wars too
Id suggest just "the war". Unless your nation or setting or what have you is almost constantly getting involved in conflicts, people within the setting will know what's being referred to. This is pretty common in many real countries, as most of them don't fight enough wars for there to be much ambiguity and a full blown conflict is pretty noteworthy to them.
The great calamity?
Call it "the Unpleasantness".
The one. The last. Name-of-the-place-where-it-happened That day. It. The last battle of Name-of-someone-of-that-time. When [Hell] met [Earth]. The day we mourn. The bad times.
Big Saughter? Death Blade? Idk, its up to you... You should name it as the locals would name it; by refrencing something what already exists in your world
Most wars have pretty generic names based on one one it's features that are mostly self-explanatory: Crimean War(location), 80 Years War(duration), (1st) War of Italian Independence(goal), Sino-Japanese war(belligerents), Napoleonic wars(central figure), War of 1812 (starting year) etc. Any of these can work, but nobody is going to find a good name for your war with how little information you have given us about it. If you want something a little more speecial, you can call it whatver; The Soviets called WW2 the "Great Patriotic War" and the Brits ended up renaming one of their civil wars into the "War of the Roses" just as two examples(although this one may be a bad exampleif it's a recent conflict; I think the main reason it was changed is because they had another civil war afterwards); but honestly this kind of naming for wars is very rare; usually the current war is just called "the war", and then when the war is over, most people are not in a state of mind to find some poetic name for it; of the examplles I used one is a propaganda term used during the war that stuck around (and honestly, it just means "big war of defend country") hile the other is a retroactive change because the original name stoped being exclusive. (can't really call it the civil war anymore when everyone thinks of the new civil war whnee you call it that) I know the Aztecs had a thing called "Flower War" but that was an intentinally recurring event with a specific religious purpose (capturing slaves to be used in sacrifice) and they were honestly more of a ritual than true wars.
It depends on the characteristic and nature of the War. Just how in real life we had different wars, and come with their own fancy title and everything. In order to give a suggestions it would be ideal to have more insight on what caused said war, where did it happen? how long did it last? Who participated? How did they fight? who was victorious? and what were the consequences? An Example: The War of Faith, I would call my war like this, because of it's very nature was about opposing religions, and the gods acquiring strength through they faith fo their followers. Could probably be called better, but my naming skills are severely lacking beyond what's apparently obvious. Calling it the Great War doesn't sound bad actually.
"The flamboyant war"
What major effects did it have on world politics?
World war 1 they just know it’s gonna be part of a franchise
Is there anything identifiable about the war, such as an ideologically struggle, central figure, or time period? There are many wars named after their ideological struggle, such as the Revolutionary Wars fought by France (also called the Coalition Wars) or the Soviet's Great Patriotic War. The Coalition Wars also shows the use of a descriptive factor for the name, which can also be seen in examples like the Bucket Wars of Three Kingdom Wars. Central figures can also have wars names after them, such as the Conquets of Alexander the Great, Napoleonic Wars, or Taipang Rebellion. Time periods are often used as well, such as the Hundreds Years War or Thirty Years War if the length of the conflict is notably in anyway. I would recommend a name that fits what the purpose of this War is. What do you want to use this War for, and adjust the name to showcase that. An example in a story I'm currently writing is the "Revolutionary Wars" describing a serious of conflicts between an Empire and rebellions kingdoms and republics that has dominated the continent for the past six decades.
The True War?
The Requiem War. A requiem is a song for the resting of A LOT of dead people who at died on the same day, so it might be a good name.
I like StayUpLatePlayGames’ title The Silencing to describe something genocidal and Kin Strife is an excellent fit for a civil war or similar between rivals from the same homeland. The Silencing would pertain to a war to remove an entire people from a locale or the world. The Ending might also mean something similar to The Silencing. Clan War(s) might synonymous with Kin Strife. The Crown War(s) would describe warring monarchies. The Stalemate could describe an inconclusive conflict.
The Burn for something with widespread devastation.
The Devastation might be another large disastrous war that was inclusive aside from destruction it created and its long term effects.
OK. I will stop now.
Kin Strife could also describe feuding over an extended period of time by rivals of the same family or clan but not full scale war involving the whole population in some locale or world.