A simple idea for a city name generator I came up with based on Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's idea in The Consuming Shadow. The basic premise is that it takes common city prefixes and suffixes and mashes them together at random, causing generic sounding city names. The fun bit is when you start mixing cities from different countries together!

CityNameGenerator.scala

package eu.wausoft.city.gen
import scala.util.Random
import java.io._

/**
  * Created by coffee on 3/8/16.
  */
object Generator {
  val prefixes = Vector (
    "Alt", "Alten", "Olden", "Groß", "Großen", "Hoh", "Hohen",
    "Höch", "Hoch", "Klein", "Lütten", "Neu", "Neuen", "Nien",
    "Nieder","Ober", "Oberst", "Wendisch", "Windisch", "Unter",
    "Aber", "Ast", "Auch", "Ach", "Auchter", "Bal", "Balla",
    "Bally", "Ball", "Brad", "Bre", "Caer", "Car", "Cut", "Cwm",
    "Cum", "Dal", "Din", "Dinas", "Dol", "Drum", "Dun", "Dum", "Don",
    "Doune", "Fin", "Inver", "Inner", "Kill", "Kin", "Kyle", "Kyles",
    "Lang", "Mynydd", "Nan", "Nans", "Nant", "Nor", "Pen", "Pit",
    "Pol", "Pont", "Porth", "Shep", "Ship", "Stan", "Strath", "Sud",
    "Sut", "Tre", "Tilly", "Tullie", "Tulloch", "Wes", "Win", "Lan",
    "Lhan", "Llan", "Lin", "Llyn"
  )

  val suffixes = Vector (
    "ach", "au", "aue", "bach", "bek", "beck", "brücken", "brück",
    "burg", "berg", "dorf", "torf", "ey", "feld", "felde", "furt",
    "hagen", "halde", "halden", "heim", "haven", "hafen", "hof",
    "hofen", "hufe", "hut", "hausen", "ing", "ingen", "ungen",
    "ung", "ens", "kirchen", "kirch", "oog", "öhe", "oie", "ee",
    "ow", "roth", "rath", "rode", "reuth", "rade", "stadt", "stedt",
    "stätt", "stetten", "tal", "thal", "wald", "welde", "wang",
    "wangen", "wängle", "wend", "winden", "werder", "werth", "wörth",
    "ort", "shaw", "bost", "carden", "caster", "chester", "cester",
    "ceter", "cot", "cott", "dale", "dean", "den", "don", "field",
    "firth", "frith", "ham", "ing", "keth", "cheth", "mouth", "ness",
    "pool", "port", "stead", "ster", "thwaite", "twatt", "wick", "wich",
    "wych", "wyke", "ay", "y", "ey", "dubh", "dow", "dhu", "duff",
    "craig", "crag", "creag", "toft", "worth", "worthy", "wardine", "by",
    "bjerg", "køping", "havn", "owo", "owa", "grad"
  )

  // generates every possible combination of cities
  // by taiking the cross-product of the two vectors
  // this generates over 8000 city names!
  lazy val combinations = for {
    prefix <- prefixes
    suffix <- suffixes
  } yield prefix + suffix

  // spits out a randomised vector of however many cities you want
  def mkCities(amount: Int): Vector[String] = {
    val cities = Random shuffle combinations
    cities take amount
  }

  // prints all the cities to a file
  def write(path: String): Either[String, String] = write(path, -1)

  // prints a randomised list of however many cities you want to a file
  def write(path: String, amount: Int): Either[String, String] = {
    val cities = if(amount < 0) Random.shuffle(combinations).mkString(", ")
                 else combinations.take(amount).mkString(", ")
    try {
      val writer  = new FileWriter(path, false)
      val printer = new PrintWriter(writer)
      println(cities)
      printer print cities
      printer.close()
      Right("Successfully wrote to file")
    }
    catch {
      case _: FileNotFoundException => Left(s"The file $path was not found")
      case e: Exception => Left(s"Could not write to file because $e")
    }
  }
}