More Awesome Than You!

I had an adult have a baby before she got married and the baby got her last name.
Is it possible to make all babies of single mothers to get the father's last name?

Babies will always get their mother's last name.  You can use SimPE to edit the last names pretty easily though.

It's like, if you make a CAS couple who are unmarried, and they have kids in CAS, you can't make a proper family tree, and the kids will be the child of only one parent although they will genetically be the child of both.  They won't have the name problem, of course, but if you want them to know that the other adult is their parent too, you need to edit the relationships , the family ties and the Neighbourhood memory.  At least with born-in-game sims, they may not have their father's last name, but they do know who he is (at least, I think they do.)

I wish this could be done in game, too.  I usually give mine either the father's name if I intend the couple to marry, or a combination of both if I don't or aren't sure.  Having to remember to change it in SimPE is a pain.  Maxis needs to move with the times and reflect the fact that almost 50% of children are born out of wedlock (not sure if that's just in the UK or worldwide).

I think it's pretty true in most Western societies, but I should think that in Moslem countries it would not be the case.  I also think that since we have a large Moslem population here in the UK who still frequently marry outside the Uk, they may not be properly reflected in current statistics.  Hoever, it's a valid point, especially as a lot of couples have their children, and then decide to get married afterwards, and you just can't do that in CAS!  just as you can't nominate an elder as parent to a teen, even though in the game Mortimer is an elder and has a child who is still a child!

I know i originally asked JM for this way back in the VS days.  It drives me absolutely batty. I don't really give a damn as long as it isn't a boy. Girls Change lastnames anyway*usually* but boys for the most part keep the same last name so it should be a choice. I would love a mod that would pop up a message asking you to Type in last name. Or atleast choose mother's or fathers or a hypenated version. PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE help the poor little bastard children lol.

Naming dialogs are buried in hardcode and can only affect first names. There is no really feasible way to affect last names in any kind of directed manner other than a consistent name-copy from somebody.

Unfortunately, not all babies actually HAVE a father in TS2, which complicates matters. Be happy none of your babies are last-named "Technician".

I didn't realise you couldn't do that. How stupid! I assume people have tried raising this point with Maxis through the official board, etc, and they've come back and said "It's working as designed"?

Oh, actually - I think I know why it wouldn't work. It's because all elders have the same hair colour (grey), but that's not a genetic colour. Except that sims made in Create-A-Sim have homozygous genes for the characteristics you give them, and that would mean your made-in-CAS elder would have a totally random genetic hair colour, which could be dominant or recessive and overwrite the colour from the other parent, leading to inexplicably black-haired children. But that's still daft.

Is there a way round it, like making the parents adults, then creating the teenage children, then editing the parents & aging them to elder before starting the game? Or does even that not work?

Yes, that works, it's what I do.  I've created several families with elder parents and adult/teenage children using exactly that method.  There should be an easier way, but since when was "easier way" synonymous with this game?

Well, I tried it once, (I was trying to recreate the Seven Brothers) and I made 6 brothers adults and a teen, then I tried to make an elder as parent for them all, and he could be parent to all but the teen.  In the end, I had to make him an adult, so he could be father to the teen, but then he had to stop being father to all the others.

ZZ, are you talking the Seven Brothers that go with the Seven Brides? Or is there another group of Seven Brothers I dunno about (which is entirely possible too)?

If it were possible I would love a choice of which last name, always having the mothers annoys me especially if I plan on having the couple marry, but then always having the fathers name would annoy me too.

What about romance females who *potentially* don't know who the father is (realistically anyway, I realise all births in TS2 come with free DNA testing)  Or wives wh've been having affairs and don't want the hubby to know the baby's not his (a different last name from both of them would kinda give it away a leetle ya think?)

Well, not the actual brothers, as I can't remember their names, but just the idea, and then I would have eventually found them seven brides!  (Most of them I did, then I stopped playing the hood.)
Well, romance sims don't have to get pregnant when they play away, unless you use hacks, and I suppose Maxis can't be held responsible for that.

That's not actually the reason. Elders *CAN* be set for a genetic haircolor in CAS, in fact, for this very reason. But you STILL can't create adults married to elders, or elders the parents of non-adults.

Why? Who knows?

Same reason they insist that not only must all children have an adult present in the family, but for no particularly explicable reason, that adult must ALSO be related on the tree.

Unlike the townie households!  One law for Maxis, another for the rest of us!

ZZ, the names of the brothers are easy! Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank (for Frankincense) and Gideon. Bible names were Ma's idea, ABCs were Pa's (or so said Adam to Millie in the movie). Just remember to make 'em all redheads too! :-D

Just so happens it's one of my mom's favorite movies that I finally got around to watching last year, and then I was hooked!

I saw it years ago quite a few times, but the names never really stuck in my head!  Thanks for the info, and when and if I get around to putting that hood back I might use SimPE to get the names right!  (Actually since it's a N005 and I only have up to N004 at present, I could put it back, but I don't really want to play it just now.)

I love that movie, I wonder if you could google it and get the "brides" names to? I could never keep the brothers or brides straight *laughs*

Hmm, the brides names are tougher, I can never remember which one goes with which brother either! The ones I do know are:

Millie - Adam
Dorcas - Benjamin
Alice - Gideon

And there's also a Ruth & a Martha in there, maybe a Sarah too? Ok, I just checked IMDB, and the one I was missing was Liza :-)