I was thinking-yes, I know, that's potentially dangerous, but sometimes, I like to try-and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if the people on HW developed a fictional, enigmatic, not-precisely-located European country (properly called a "Ruritania," as in The Prisoner of Zenda) that we could all use for short stories and novels?
I was thinking we could start with the countries early, say, Roman-Contemporary (when the Romans controlled Europe, more or less) origins, and develop a basic history from there. Then we could flesh it out with all the things that make European countries so fun (political intrigue, revolutions, wars, quaint cultures, and local dialects of a quirky language, for example).
I'm even imagining that we'll discuss how WW1 and WW2 effect our country, etc.
As for locations, we can just assign a general location (Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Mediterranean, Gaul, etc.), and create our own ethnicity (based on the local ethnics groups, like, say, Slavs, if we chose that region of Europe). I can cover inventing a new European Romance Language (easyness).
Now, we just need a name. Here's some, but please propose more.
Ruria (conveys something similar to Ruritania, Czechoslovakia, Bosnia, Lithuania)
Rurany (Like Normandy, Brittany, Italy, Germany, Hungary...hungry?!
)Rurain (Britain, Spain)
Note: I happen to like the root "rur". Feel free to propose something completely different. Just make sure it sounds vaguely Euro.
UPDATE
The Poll has been created, using any names which appeared twice the top six-lists.
Here are some ideas for names: