Quote Originally Posted by Sarithus View Post
The whole word Sathir/parts of it mean 'Bend' or something?
Yup, that's correct. If you want your river to have originally been named after its winding course, then yeah, Sathir will mean 'bend'.

Was someone literally called Tailor after their job once and it eventually got changed to Taylor?
That's exactly how it worked. As ever, Wikipedia is your friend. Read this article on Occupational Surnames.

I suspect the change in spelling of Taylor is one of those quirks of the English language. Until into the 1600s there was no standardisation on spelling. People spelled a word how they pronounced it, so with regional variations in accents, you'd get a lot of different spellings of the same word. Eventually, as spellings become standard, one version would become the 'correct' one, and it looks like, for names, the version with the 'y' won.

What would I call hills if I wasn't doing it based on a language and I wasn't using descriptive names?
You can call it whatever you like. You really are over-thinking it. Just look around in the real world. What are hills called? It could be Xantir Hill, Xantir Mount, Xantir Rise, Xantir Brae and probably a load of other names that I can't think of right now. There are no absolute rules with naming anything, so you can go with what feels right. Just ask yourself, how would the natives have referred to a place back in the mists of time? What would they call it to distinguish it from other geographical landmarks in the area? Use that as your root, and whether it's Xantir Hill or Hill of Xantir is down to common usage. 'Hill of ...' sounds more formal, so that might suit an important site. I can't see the locals saying "Hey, let's take a stroll up the Hill of Xantir".