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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39716
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39716
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Let me challenge your premise. You say you're writing alternative history. Usually, alternative history has one point of divergence from real history, and the effects of this divergence are explored. The divergence can be a fantastical element, or it can just be that history took a different course. Some examples: Susanna Clarke's _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel_ is about the Napoleon wars, only with magic. Philip K. Dick's _The Man in the High Castle_ explores a world in which the Axis, rather than the Alliance, won WW2.

In both cases, and in all other similar stories I can think of, countries' names are changed only if, and inasmuch as, it is made necessary by the point of divergence. For example, in _The Man in the High Castle_, we have the "Rocky Mountain States". The change, in such a case, helps us focus on the effects of the divergence from real history, understand its implications. Everything that has no reason to be directly affected by the divergence, remains the same. This is necessary: if you make unrelated changes, the focus is lost, the story becomes confusing. The familiar elements of the setting help the reader remain grounded.

You, on the other hand, have changed names "to create distance from our world". If you are writing _alternative_ history, the divergence from real history has introduced enough of a distance already, you don't need more. In fact, keeping the names the same would give you more freedom, since you'd be able to use idioms etc. that belong to the countries you're writing about.

I might be misinterpreting your intention, but the impression I get from the first paragraph of your question is that you changed the countries' names solely to avoid one country or another being read as "bad" from the start. You don't need to worry about this. Consider Erich Maria Remarque's _All Quiet on the Western Front_. Nobody thinks of the characters of that book as "bad Germans". It's not about sides - it's about people. Much like your work wants to be, it seems. Similarly, consider how nobody inherently assumes that Napoleon is good and the Russians are bad, or the other way round, when one reads stories about 1812 - we are willing to take whatever side any particular writer wishes to follow. This is not WW2 you're writing about. (And even with WW2 you have some leeway: _Grave of the Fireflies_ is a heart-rending Studio Ghibli film about two children in Japan during that war.)

Which is all to say, you really don't need to change the countries' names. (Unless you have a reason to do this, which you haven't stated.) This will solve your problem of idioms etc.

Original score: 6