Personally I absolutely hated Rowling's goofy, twee-sounding naming conventions.
Hah, I just remembered that Star Trek has The Badlands, which was prominent in DS9 and the site of Voyager's "disappearance" in their pilot episode. One can imagine it got that name because it was, well, bad for everyone inside.
The name I hated the most was the Briar Patch from Insurrection. It was meant to sound whimsical and from the old Uncle Remus stories, but then Riker references Br'er Rabbit, forgetting to wink at the audience. Such a corny literary reference that was supposed to sound cute and clever. From the same minds that had Picard and Worf singing Gilbert & Sullivan for that youth appeal.
Winterfell... Volantis...
It makes little difference to me. Not everything in every fantasy book needs to be purely made up and conjured from thin air. I'm fine with his more "normal" sounding names. He had plenty of creative fantasy names mixed in to not make this an issue.
It's fantasy. There can be a mix. Not everything has to be made up every single time. Yuhugrundheim or Snowy Watch, doesn't much matter to me as long as it makes enough sense for the story they're in.
I have to put Fantasy / Sci Fi with iffy names down. Can't read it. LOT, GoT and Dune are doing just fine
The names are not that bad but I can see where valentis is coming from. There were two places in Thrones called Castle Black and Casterly Rock. It was confusing.
Historically names of people and places are rooted in words with a meaning, Tolkein was a master linguist and Martin is not, so most places have English roots in the name. Nothing wrong with that. It's realistic, accessible, and full of symbolism.
Look at place names like Manchester, Westchester, etc.:
"The English place-name Chester, and the suffixes -chester, -caster and -cester (old -ceaster), are commonly indications that the place is the site of a Roman castrum, meaning a military camp or fort (cf. Welsh caer), but it can also apply to the site of a pre-historic fort"
Plus the symbolic value adds a lot. Starfall, King's Landing, those names invoke history and themes on purpose.
Half the locations in Skyrim are the same.
Whiterun
Windhelm
Solitude
Dawnstar
Honeyside
Mistveil
I don't know what it is, but so many writers go nuts for Gilbert & Sullivan. When they reference them, they make it so aggressive and for some reason everyone in the universe is also a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan. The worst example I can think of was the episode of the West Wing where there is a thru line in one of the episodes where all of the characters on and off would argue over whether or not one of the songs was from Penzance or Pinafore and then finding out that Sam was recording secretary of the Princeton Gilbert and Sullivan Society, which may be the nerdiest thing ever mentioned in the show. I get it if one of the characters is a fan, but literally every main character and two side characters are involved in this debate through the episode.
Seriously, I don't think I've ever encountered Gilbert & Sullivan in the real world, but on TV you'd think they were the end all be all of pop culture.
I absolutely dig those simple names. They sound good to my ears in englisch and in the German translation.
The Lotr names are Cool, too, by the way. The best names are from Star Wars, even if they are gibberish.
The Harry Potter ones...not so much.