My towns name is Traverse after Traverse Town in Kingdom Hearts. My flag is a keyblade and my town tune is Dearly Beloved (the song that plays at the play menu). I even have Axel the elephant so I'm pretty happy with my town haha.
I think it's fine as long as they are happy with it. I personally wouldn't do that, but that's only because I like my towns to be original. I would probably regret naming it after a town that already exists, but that's just me!
My towns have all been named after birds for some reason (I'm not even a bird fanatic). My WW town was Toucan, my CF one was either Flamingo or Pigeon (can't remember) and my NL one is Pelican. It's just been a sort of long running tradition for me!
I don't think any game related town names are anything original but I have no problem with them as mine is one too. I wanted to name my town as something else from the same game, but it couldn't fit. :b But yeah, as long as the player is happy, I don't care if their town name is Pallet, Hyrule, Greenhill or anything else. :v
It's not something I would do, personally, and it can get annoying seeing so many with the same name - for example, there's an awful lot of Hyrules - but as long as it makes you happy, then go for it.
I don't mind them, even when they're overdone. My town is named Twelve after District 12 in the Hunger Games and I love it that way. Original names have a special quality to them but I couldn't (and still can't) think of one I'd prefer to Twelve. c:
I think game-based names are fine as long as they didn't overdo it(like Hyrule). I personally named my towns based on games too(1st town is from Fire Emblem Awakening and 2nd town is from SMTIV).
I'm not a huge gamer outside ACNL. I'm familiar with them, but I don't really play any of them much anymore. But the thing about game-related names is that, for the most part, that's not where they're from originally. They're usually lifted out of literature or pop-culture of history, unless they're entirely fabricated.
Take Albion: historically, it's the oldest name we have for Britain. Predates the Britons and encompasses a wild time in the history of the place. It's also used in H. P. Lovecraft's writings about the Cthulhu/elder gods alternate history of the world. I see this kind of thing all the time. So when I see these names, I don't think "Oh, that's Pokemon." I think "Oh, pre-Teutonic Briton and/or elder gods. Nice."
(Then again, I named one of my towns after a Gallifreyan spaceship that looks like a blue police box, so....)
