Place names that sound like they belong in a different country.

[tonique]

Some Finnish examples. It's true short names can fall more easily together with foreign names or other words. Then there are plenty of Swedish names in Finnish, which are, naturally enough, actual Swedish. Remember also the names in the three Sámi languages. Finally, names are borrowed in different ways between languages.

Due to the structure of Finnish, many correspondences to Italian and Japanese are to be expected.

Levanto is a village in Mäntsälä - Levanto is a town in Italy
Hetta is a village in Enontekiö - "hetta" means 'heat' in Swedish
Inari is a municipality in Lapland - "inari" could be a Japanese word
Iso-Pento in Kuhmalahti (now part of Kangasala) - Italian? Japanese?
Somero is a municipality in Finland Proper - ditto

But it isn't expected that many non-Finnish names would sound like "Ähtäri", "Lappeenranta" or "Hyrynsalmi".

[rero]

Poland - Hel

Sounds strangely unpolish to me, but I don't know where to place it. Sometimes it reminds me of Helsinki but without the sinking part lol

Finland - Kotka

means little cat in Russian/Polish

[Alexandro]

Many place names in Catalonia sound psuedo French like La Seu d'Urgell, Montblanc, L'Hospitalet, Sant Cugat, etc.

Also some places in Euskadi like Barakaldo and Lekeitio, although idk what country that would be exactly, haha, maybe if the ETA had their way.

There are a lot of cities in the Americas that sound like they belong in a different country because the colonialists were uncreative bastards, the southwestern and eastern US has a lot of Spanish place names, the northeast has many British place names, Quebec has French place names, a lot of LatinAm places are named directly after cities and towns in Iberia, etc.

[Komintasavalta]

Inari is a municipality in Lapland - "inari" could be a Japanese word
Iso-Pento in Kuhmalahti (now part of Kangasala) - Italian? Japanese?
Somero is a municipality in Finland Proper - ditto

Other Finnish municipalities that sound Japanese: Akaa, Aura, Hamina, Hanko, Ii, Inkoo, Kaarina, Kauniainen, Kemi, Kurikka, Kuusamo, Nokia, Paimio, Parainen, Pori, Soini.

These sound Japanese when "j" is replaced with "y": Honkayoki, Isoyoki, Kariyoki, Yoensuu, Yokioinen, Yoroinen, Yuuka.

A few Nenets surnames also sound Italian: Serotetto, Okotetto. This sounds Swedish: Salinder. This sounds Japanese: Anagurichi.

[Creoda]

Sandbach and Alsager in Cheshire

[Graham]

Lhanbryde in Moray.


Looks like it should be Welsh.

[Mikula]

Czech Republic
Varnsdorf

[Ryujin]

New Smyrna Beach in Florida, sounds like a place in Izmir. I learned that the town was founded by migrants from Izmir.

[Sandis]

Romanian place names that sound like Latvian:

Berceni, Dăbuleni, Deleni, Dumbrăvița, Ivanda, Lăceni, Liteni, Măureni, Pădureni, Parva, Pleşi, Popeni, Putna, Rânceni, Ranta, Săveni, Sita, Ungureni, Vaida, Vaidei

Corresponding Latvian place names (including 2 rivers):

Bērcēni, Dāboli, Dēliņi, Dumbrāji, Īvande, Lācēni, Litene, Maurēni, Padure, Karva, Pleši, Pope, Kalna-Putni, Rencēni, Ranka, Sāviena, Sita (river), Unguri, Vaidava (river), Vaide

[cass]

Mecklenburg is literally undermined by "urdeutsch toponyms" like Gnoien, Carpin, Gnevkow, Krakow, Thurow, Grabow, Rakow, Strelow, Mirow, Tarnow, Warsow, Medow, Alt Bukow.