More Awesome Than You!

If I were to edit the names lists in the Live.package file, is it necessary to change the text lists in the files for each EP, for the most recent EP only, or for the base game only? I am thinking of resetting my game using SaraMK's clean templates, a set of face replacements, and new names lists for townies and NPCs.

Can't you just save it as its own file (entitled, of course, Live.package) and put it into Downloads which will override any other lists already in existence?

I just edited live.package (from the downloads folder, courtesy of Jordi) in SimPE. I like most of the names, just needed some U, Z, W, and V's added so that I could complete my Alphabet challenge some time down the line. Adding lines to or changing the entries seems to work, if you are just wanting a few changes. I've already seen a townie spawned with a new name I needed.

I want it to work for the Maxis neighborhoods, and I think it won't do that when placed in Downloads.

I think you ought to talk to Jordi about this because I believe he has done this.  I seem to recall a mod at MTS2 with his fingerprints on it that did this.  Maybe I am wrong...

Eh, just sat on my lazy butt and went to find it myself.  The thread is here:

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=110889 (http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=110889)

Maybe it has the info you need there.  He also has a separate mod there for pet names as well.

Hmm. I thought it would override for the Maxis crap-hoods. Jordi doesn't mention there being any difference between new names in customs and in defaults, and there really isn't a reason for there to be a difference.
I could be bothered to test this in Riverblossom, as I've no desire to play that neighborhood again past jerking over the Corsillo kids (Ramiswami spawn) eventually.

Yes, I know about Jordi's project. The current version is still a bit too Anglo-centric for my tastes.

In any case, it's not clear from that thread whether placing a modified Live.package file in Downloads will result in new townie names in the Maxis neighborhoods if I regenerate them. It says that it will work after using DeleteAllCharacters (which I'm not going to do), but is mum regarding regenerating new, populated neighborhoods.

Since each EP has its own Live.package that includes name lists, I'm guessing it should be necessary to replace only the Live.package in my most recent EP (in this case, OFB). I am just looking for confirmation of this.

BTW, I see that the current version of SimPE has the capability of changing the default language for the names lists (the options are English, English-UK, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hebrew, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Polish, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Hindi, Czech, Ukranian, Arabic, Icelandic, and a few others), but all these are too mono-cultural for my needs—I want something with variety but without the oddball names that populate the default English lists. It is possible to export these name lists with SimPE, so I'm thinking of exporting several, selecting names from the different lists (easier than researching common names in different countries and regions), and pasting them into the default English list.

These exported lists aren't the most convenient files with which to work:


but they can be imported back into the game, so it would be easy to export the default English list, cut-and-paste names from the other lists into the default list, and import the default English list back into the file.

..and I'm thinking you don't need to replace anything at all. Since Jordi's package goes into Downloads, your modified one should be able to go there too. Unless there's something in the coding I didn't notice before. It's one of the few hacks I've actually delved into.

Eh, there was something somewhere from Jordi here about modifying the package at large (not going through bit-by-bit for minor changes/additions like I did) in the case that you'd like a completely different list. Without looking at the gobble you posted above. Unfortunately, my search-fu here is off and MTS2 is being difficult. Will keep looking.

As far as placing a replacement file in Documents, the discussion of Jordi's replacement file speaks only to generating townies (and townie names) after having generated the default neighborhoods, deleting all characters, and then creating new townies as needed or desired. I understand that we can infer that the replacement file will be read when generating new default neighborhoods as well, but I don't know whether we know that for certain. Of course, it's not a big deal to try it out—if it doesn't work, all that needs to be done is to delete the newly-created neighborhoods. But it would be nice to know beforehand what works and what doesn't.

The "gobble" is simply the first five names in the Spanish version of the family-names list, as exported from SimPE:

Pérez
Bermúdez
Sims
Pastor
Gutiérrez

Here's what the lists look like in SimPE. You can see the regional list on the left and the default equivalent on the right.

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c102/callahfc/SimPE_Names.png)

If you're talking about the default townies dumped into every 'hood, changing the default name list won't do anything to Goopy and the other pleasantview regulars.  You seem like the sort who already knows this, so I'm expecting you mean something different.

If you're talking about generating townies via the townie tree or something similar, I wouldn't expect it to call on any different routines than what happens when a townie is normally replaced.  If you're set to make a custom 'hood already, it might be quicker to generate one with a "test" live.package - one with no names in common with the regular Maxian one - than to wait for someone with more code-fu to come across this topic.

Indeed. I'm thinking of using SaraMK's "clean" neighborhood templates, which include only the Maxis playables and the townies they know. From there I would either create townies using testing cheats, or else let them self-generate one at a time. I also plan on making a custom lot with no pre-made townies, and then generating the townies using the mailbox. In the latter case, just dropping a modified Live.package in downloads would work fine, apparently.

I don't actually play in the Maxis neighborhoods, so to some extent it's rather a moot point; but I've been told that Strangetown can be fun to play, so I'd see the effects there.

New names are pulled from the strings in Live.package no matter when these names are needed. So it works for normal spawning (new townie/service npc needed), and full-spawning (after DAC or starting from a clean 'hood).

There are several name lists:
-Male first names
-Female first names
-Male last names (base game: Last names for both genders)
-Female last names (uni and up only)
-Male pet names
-Female pet names
-Male pet last names (unused by the code, may have future use)
-Female pet last names (unused by the code, may have future use)

The package must have an equal or higher number of entries than the default (or default names are appended to it). Including a name list not understood or not used by your game version is safe (even though base game doesn't have a separate list for male and female last names, it will be able to use a package with this list in it -- it will just ignore the female last names and use the male list for them. Likewise pets name lists will be ignored for games without pets).

Courtesy of (I think) dizzy2 I have a small program that will take a text list of names in a format easily created with Word or another text editor, and turn it into a Simpe importable file. It's what I used to create the Live.package mods. Instructions and download are buried somewhere in one of the two threads.

That's what I was trying to find. Got it.

Argh! I closed this tab instead of just coming back to it, and lost all I wrote!   >:(

Anyway:  So, putting a modified Live.package in Downloads is sufficient for it to be used when generating new default neighborhoods using "clean" templates?

I did see the link to the conversion program. Although it may be more work, I'm leaning toward editing existing text files in a copy of the Live.package file . . . . although I may change my mind.   ::)

BTW, the Social Security Administration (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/) has a lot of interesting information about U.S. names. Did you know that from 1970 through 1984, the most popular girl's name was Jennifer (since then it has been Emily)? Or that with the exception of 1960, the most popular boy's name from 1954 through 1998 was Michael (since then it has been Jacob)?

You can do a lot of things at this Web site.  You can find the 100 most popular names (100 each for boys and girls) by state for any year beginning with 1960. You can see the most popular 20, 50, 100, 500, or 1000 names for any year since 1879—this is quite interesting, showing the movement away from "traditional" names like Elmer and Bertha toward the "Romance Novel" style of naming babies that has been evident since around 1980. Perhaps most awesome for our purposes, there are lists of the top 1000 names by decade—I can't decide whether to use the 1970s list or the one for the 1890s:  Out of 1.2 million male babies, 80,000 were named John, and 38 were named Admiral.   ;D    This would be useful for someone creating a themed neighborhood, Victorian for example, or Wild West. I may use the list from the 1930s or 1940s, since those come after the periods of large-scale immigration from Italy and central Europe. OTOH, there are a lot of obsolete names, especially for men, so I wouldn't want to use all 1000 names.

For surnames, I may use a block of names from the middle of the top 1000 from the 2000 census, maybe from 200-400 (depending on how many I need) to avoid all the really common names like Smith and Johnson, and to pick up more non-Anglo and non-European names. This would be fairly realistic for where I live now—Anglo-American surnames are probably a minority in my neighborhood. My neighbors are from Haiti and there are several Hispanic households nearby. And of course being in south Louisiana, French, Spanish, and German names are common (although in the greater New Orleans phone book, the names with the most entries appear to be Smith, Johnson, and Brown).

On a tangent, interested in sharing lists of outrageous, unique, or funusual surnames that exist in real life?  I have a peculiar fascination with this because I tend to build lots of houses and after doing all the work I normally feel compelled to fill the house with a family, often one that I have little interest in playing.  In effect, I am filling my 'hoods with custom townies that own houses.  (Not concerned with how this may or may not implode my game, my game is already hopelessly corrupt, and I have been doing this since the very beginning)  I love strange and suggestive surnames that exist in real life, and have collected quite a few, such as 'Strangewayes', 'Sweetecok', and 'Deatherage'.  I have quite a lot, but I am running out of names and I need more.  If you or anyone else is interested I could compile a list and share, but only if I thought others would be interested and would contribute.  If you would rather not clutter this thread with this, I could alternately start a new topic, but it seems to have some application here.

I once had a job working with real estate tax roles. A name I came across that I have used in my game is Speener Hose.

Actually knew a guy with the last name "Porn".

Hegelian: once you have a modified list, ANY new generated townie/service NPC/stray will take its name from that list. So, yes.

Cool! Thanks!!

I was unaware that there would be a need for different male and female last names.  Is this just my anglocentricism showing through, or is there much need for different surnames by sex?

One of the unfortunate things about about the engine is that skin tone and first name are often correlated in real life, while there's no system in place to simulate that in the game.  (And in all fairness, I could see such a system getting uglier than it's worth for EA to include.)  I guess in the game's colorblind utopia it won't matter, but as a player it'd be interesting to see how the "ethnic" names get mismatched every which way.

KoW, afraid I can't help much.  I run in circles with some interesting first names, but last names seem to be pretty run of the mill.  It might help to bone up on some etymology, though, as certain last names have interesting antecedents even if they're not as directly suggestive as you'd like.  Just a way to pad your list and all...

The one that springs to my mind is Russian. Ulanov/Ulanova, and so on. Statistically, there must be other languages that do the same...

Subtly suggestive definitely works for me, and are even more desirable, though they are harder to come by and more tricky to identify when scanning large lists for new candidates.  I do have some scandalous foreign-translation surnames in play already, although some of these are made up names or just words used for names and therefore not as desirable.  Not every name need or can be as luridly descriptive as 'Rayphole' or 'Cockburn', and I can definitely appreciate a name if it just has an interesting sound or unique cadence.  A name can be just 'cool' like 'Ravenscroft', for instance, and that is good enough for me.

It is very often that the use of a great surname is, for myself, one of the main things that can determine if I actually play a family beyond moving them into a house.

Perhaps if I get some time later I will compose a more extensive list and post it here, since there seems to be at least a modicum of interest and, given the opportunity, Hegelian did not object.

I believe in Iceland they still use a traditional naming scheme that includes "jonsdattir or svensdottir and stefansson or helgarsonur, depending on the child's gender, so definate need for a different list male to female.

Yeah, Iceland doesn't have last names, but patrinomics.
In the Live.package I have uploaded the male and female last name lists are identical, in my own version there is a difference in them as I offset the female last names by half (to avoid even more cases of duplicate last names).

Could be worse. You could end up like Major Major Major Major.

An interesting bit of trivia: Because of this, the Icelandic phone book is sorted by first name.

Yeah, my dad (who spent 6 months in Iceland doing research) says it's a horrid godawful mess to find anyone in the phone book.

Yeah... but... don't they only have like 500,000 people? Can't be that  hard.

You ever try to find the right "John" in a list of 500,000?

It's no harder to look for John Smith under J than it is to look for him under S.
If you think about it, it makes more sense considering that a person named Leif Bjørnson, the last name just indicates that his father is named Bjørn.  Unless you happen to know his father, it's more likely for you to be able to identify the correct "Leif" by looking under L than under B.

I figure with their name system you are less likely to have name combos like John Smith. And all 500,000 aren't going to be John Smith. And hopefully the address book would have other identifying info, like city of residence or something.

In any case, isn't Bjørn outlawed as a name now? Or am I thinking of some other country?

I've got a name for you.

Years ago, there was a newspaper article that a woman had been arrested for drunk driving.  Her name (and it was in print, I swear) was Marigold Thunderpussy.

I ask you, if that were your name (I'm sure it was by birth), wouldn't you change it?  To like, Jane Thunderpussy?

I crack myself up   :D

Speaking of names...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXTngYxm8Bs

300,000 (give or take) actually...


Icelandic doesn't have the 'ø' in the language, so it must be some other Scandinavian country. In Iceland, it would be Björn.

Why would a name be outlawed?  My father is named Bjørn.  It means bear; quite litterally, not just in some vauge archaic way.

And yes, I believe they use Ö in Iceland, not Ø.  Denmark and Norway use Ø and Æ, Sweden and Iceland use Ö and Ä, but they are the same letter; pronounced exactly the same way.

Icelandic doesn't have the Ä, but it does have the Æ (which is pronounced as 'ai' or more commonly just 'i'). The Ö is more of an 'eh' sound, so Björn is pronounced like 'byehrdn' (the 'rn' combination has a 'd' or 't' sound in the middle when speaking). And Björk  (their famous singer) is pronounced 'byehrk'

I've been studying Icelandic on and off since I went there last October -- interesting language. :)

I read that some country outlawed all names that have animal meanings (and other meanings), and I think Bjorn was cited as an example. Can't recall where I read it though. And now that I think about it, it wasn't Iceland.  ???

EDIT: D'Oh, just recalled. It was in a baby name book (Beyond Jennifer & Jason) which I was using to name sims. Not the most stellar source of info, I admit.  ::)  Here's what it says:

According to Norwegian Name Law parents are forbidden from  giving their children names blah blah blah blah. New  on the law's forbidden list: animal names, which means there will be no more Bjorns (translation: bear) in Norway.

For the record, we had a customer with the surname Cockburn when I worked in computer repairs. Yesterday I spoke to Mr Goodenough. Then there was Frank Spencer wanting to check his car insurance. It's hard not to laugh.

-Skadi

The best I've got is probably Cassaboom.  Maybe Prickett.  I also like Utter, for some reason.

The best surname I've ever seen, though I haven't used it in game, is Maestroguiseppe. I saw that in the phone book years ago.

I work with employee databases so I've seen a gazillion names, many of the common type but some really fantastic.
I feel bad for those with uninspired parents who've named them Tom Thomas, Joe Joseph, Rob Roberts etc.. (I've seen at least 2 of each, but have come across countless other 'Last name and repeat' names)
Though I suppose it made kindergarden easier, I can't help think I'd have been disappointed with such a name.

The most surprising surname I've come across was Outhouse. I realize most names mean something, but the idea that your name means that is...

*has one of those stupid last names that was mutated at one point to disguise their origins...

In my current work I deal with lists of names of personnel at hospitals, clinics, and university research centers worldwide, so I see a lot of interesting real names. I'm not particularly interested in "humorous" or bizarre names (although "Speener Hose" did strike me as both odd and humorous--but not because I could (mis)read it as vulgar or suggestive). Some of the names I've run across that find interesting are:

Juner Colina		Mallie Taylor		Malou Rosman
Britta Bunselmayer		Carolina Hevia		Kajsa Silfverstrand
Janne Björkander		Fausto Berti		Lola Ballet
Begoña Uriarte		Carlos Mendez Mendez		Fernando Busto
Yordak Salermo		Maria Mejia		Kimbi Overton
Alexia Flamarion		Gwenaelle Clavier		Jacynthe Touchette

Since these are real names, I hope none of these folks are offended if they happen for some reason to see their names here. I'm not poking fun; I just think they're interesting or have a nice sound to them.

(I figured out how to make a table!)




There were Cosabooms and Pricketts in the small town where I grew up, in southern New Jersey.

I have actually spoken to a Crystal Ball. Also someone whose surname was Vander Vlught, which aside from having to spell it constantly is pretty awesome. (And I have to spell MY name constantly anyway, because it's also unusual. Although nowadays there's a famous athlete whose surname sounds like mine, so instead of "huh?" I get "like the football player?" and then I correct their spelling.)

I am so naming one of my sims Lola Ballet.

I think that Baby Names book is lying to you. Björn is not a forbidden name in Norway. In Sweden some parents sometimes have problems getting brand new names with meanings approved, or using familynames as first names. Cant name a little swede Svensson as first name, hehe.
All countries of course has names that sound funny in other languages, in Sweden we have a range of old Swedish female names of this kind: Britt, Gerd, Gun, ect. And I know a Norwegian family with two sons that had some problems when they lived for a couple of years in the US: their names were Odd and Bent :P

Interesting with the female last names - so the list equivalent Petrov/Petrova, so that a daughter of Petrov gets the name Petrova? I have some Russian families in my game and this could be a nice thingie..

(Jordi, I love your live-mod :D)

My boyfriend works with someone named Helga Helmet.
I think that sounds like a MegaMan Villain.

Yeah, I like that one too. I already have a Lola sim I've used more than once. She began sim-life as Lola Längerfeld, but in the cc- and hack-free neighborhood I've been playing recently she is Lola Villeneuve as a result of joining with Joanie Villeneuve, another real name from my work. The original Lola was created as a potential mate for a guy named Gordon Zephyr (not a real name).


Can you tell us the correct pronunciation of "Kajsa"?


This common in several Slavic languages, including Czech and Bulgarian. A Czech example would be Martina Navratilova, whose step-father's name was Navrátil. There are plenty of literary examples, such as Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin/Anna Karenina. You can easily see the form in the current crop of female Russian tennis players (Sharapova, Dementieva, Kuznetsova, Myskina, and Dinara Safina, sister of Marat Safin). From the Czech Republic you have former players Hana Mandlíková and Jana Novotná.

Spanish is another interesting case, with children usually given two surnames, the father's followed by the mother's maiden name. It is common to refer to individuals by the father's surname (i.e., Gabriel García Márquez could be Gabriel García, although in formal writing he is generally referred to a García Márquez; in either case, he would not be referred to simply as Márquez). Since this is not the practice in Anglo-American culture, the names we use to refer to many famous Spanish historical figures in the Americas are incorrect. For example, the governor and explorer we know as Francisco Coronado would more correctly be called Francisco Vázquez (Francisco Vázquez de Coronado y Luxán); in documents of his own time, he is Vázquez or Vázquez de Coronado. It is my understanding that it is up to the individual whether the father's or mother's name is used, or both.

An example is the remarkable Cabeza de Vaca, who in 1528 set out from Tampa Bay as part of an expedition of 300 men, exploring north and west along the Gulf coast, shadowed by their ships offshore. The ships lost contact and after a year of looking, returned to New Spain (Mexico). The expedition made its way from inland down to the coast at Apalachee Bay (south of Tallahassee, Fla.) and built rafts on which to sail back to New Spain, and in the fall of 1528 two of the rafts beached on Galveston Island (about 650 straight-line miles) or possibly an island off the south Louisiana coast. Here they were captured and enslaved by the local people, and over the next few years most of the Spaniards died. In September 1534, Cabeza de Vaca and three others escaped and headed toward Mexico on foot. Using mostly worthless European medical practices, Cabeza de Vaca earned a reputation as healer among the local populations, and instead of being treated as an escapee, he and his companions were greeted warmly, being fed, clothed, sheltered, and given escorts. In July 1536 they encountered a Spanish slaving party in what is now the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa; they had an escort of several hundred Pima-speaking natives.

Anyway, his full name was Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Since his mother's family was of higher status than his father's, he chose to be known as Cabeza de Vaca. My source suggests that Hernando de Soto would have been known to his contemporaries as Soto. From this, it is not clear whether Juan Ponce de Léon would have been known as Ponce, as Léon, or as Ponce de Léon.

Any Spanish person who cares to correct any of this should feel free to do so.   ;D

Kajsa is pronounced Kaisa (Not like Okay, looong aa, more like "I" in "I am")
I do know a lot about the slavic names, my question was, does the female name list in Sims2 (when prepared for it), make this happen automatically?
(I work as a Swedish-Russian translator, and lived in Moscow for 3 years, my husband is a Russian, so if I did change my familyname, which I didnt, I would prefer the female version.)

Lol! Well don't I feel stupid. But maybe other folks might find what I wrote useful (or not!).  :P

Anyway, in the regional lists included in the U.S. edition of the game, the Russian, Bulgarian, Cyrillic, and Ukrainian lists use the default American names, but the Czech lists are male and female versions of real Czech or Czech-like names.

(http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c102/callahfc/czechnames.png)

AFAIK, everything you stated was correct up until this point.  Hernando de Soto's last name was de Soto.  This isn't a good example of typical Spanish name progression.  He would have been known to his contemporaries as "de Soto."   It's like "van Allen", two words, one last name.

I personally have never seen or come across anyone choosing the matrilineal name (i.e. Leon vs Ponce), so that may be extremely rare.  It is very, very common to keep the father's name and just be, for example, Juan Ponce. So Juan Ponce de Leon MAY have been Juan Ponce to his friends, and Ponce de Leon to anyone else.

I say "may" because it's extremely, extremely, EXTREMELY rude in Spanish speaking countries to drop any part of a person's name, unless you've been invited to call them by their first name or you know which last name they prefer.  Spanish surnames were formerly formed as Father's-Last-Name Mother's-Last-Name, but then some people, depending on the area, formed them Mother's-Last-Name Father's-Last-Name (i.e. in the USA, it was much more common in the 20th century to have two middle names than to have two last names, thus the Latinos trying to fit their customs to the culture gave their children the mother's maiden name as part of the middle name).

Some people are fine with just being called Sr/a. Father's-Last-Name (problem is, you can't tell by looking which last name is the father's last name), some would prefer Sr/a Father's Last Name Mother's Last Name (although this is considered very formal) and for women, it can get tricky once they're married. 

For example, my mother's full legal name is now Sherry Lynn Her-Father's-Last-Name Her-Mother's-Last-Name de My-Father's-Father's-Last-Name My-Father's-Mother's-Last-Name.  It's considered acceptable to abbreviate it to Sherry Lynn Her-Father's-Last-Name de My-Father's-Father's-Last-Name, and I believe that's what is on her passport.  Can't be sure, may be the full formal one.  My last name happens to be formed as My-Father's-Father's-Last-Name*HYPHENATED*My-Mother's-Father's-Last-Name, if you are wondering.  If I chose to continue this, my surname would become My-Father's-Father's-Last-Name de Whoever-I-Married, and the kids would have surnames of Whoever-I-Married My-Father's-Father's-Last-Name.

This is, again, why everybody gets called senor or senora.  If they like you, they'll invite you to call them by their first name in fifteen seconds anyway, if they don't or it's a formal occasion, you can't go wrong with senor or senora.

Okay, after considerable delay (pesky responsibilities and bothersome commitments and all, you know) here is an abridged list of some surnames I have found interesting/amusing/unusual.  It may not be obvious why some have been included here, but if any name does not seem to be particularly clever a Google search would probably turn up why it has been included.  I am mostly omitting names that are blatantly renowned as I don't typically use those for sim-families but rather for the names of streets, parks, and certain types of community lots (libraries, museums, and similar places). 

I have some general criteria how I determine which names get used in my game, though these conditions are not exclusive of other qualities.  Mainly, these criteria are as follows, in order of preference:

1.The name is a 'real' name, one that is used by someone, somewhere in the 'real' world now or was in the past.
2.The name has a relationship to the world of the paranormal/supernatural/unexplained, wacky philosophies, freaky fringe religions, controversial history, or sci-fi/fantasy literature.  (Special awesomeness if associated with a Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind!)
3.The name has suggestive qualities in English, typically but not limited to sexual innuendo, or it has multiple levels of meaning.  Also, the name might mean something in Old English or Middle English which has been generally lost to Modern English.
4.The name means something in a language other than English that might, if translated, be funusual, embarrassing, controversial, or scandalous, etc.
5.The name has an interesting or creative sound, appearance, or cadence, or it is just 'cool' in some way.


Here are some names, including the ones I mentioned in earlier posts, in no particular order except one after another:

Greatrakes 
Rosenkreutz
Lovecraft
Ravenscroft
Moorcock
Grimshawe
Witchell
Deatherage
Hotchkiss
Breedlove
Grafenberg
Maskelyne
Houchlei
Sacheverell
Lestrange
Cockburn
Waldegrave
Kilgore
Strangewayes
Maydestone
Outlawe
Sweetecok
Montrose
Cockayne
Schrivener
Warhover
Trollope
Rayphole
Cottingley
Killakee
Strahan
Bligh
Baird
Undine
Lipschitz
Killarney
Bork
McElhoney


(N.B.  All of these names exist somewhere, I believe, so please don't be offended if one of them happens to be yours!)

I hope someone out there finds this list useful, and I hope someone else finds it fun.  But mostly, I hope someone has a similar list with more great names I can use to further bloat my game with unplayed sim-families.  Surely (perhaps?) I am not the only one with a peculiar obsession with interesting or unusual surnames.

My real last name is Minger. Brits, feel free to point and laugh.

Not giving away much; I'm ridiculously easy to stalk.

/me points and laughs ;)

Are you British too?  If so, you must have gone through hell at school.

Also this post has inspired me to edit my live.package too, thanks Khan, those are great names.  I have been trying to find websites with only unusual fore and surnames but nothing has leapt out at me yet.  I am getting tired of searching endlessly through census records full of tediously common names.

LOL poor Zaza :D

It depends how old Zaza is. 'Minger' has only really been about for the last 5 years or so, made famous by Jade Goody in the Big Brother house, when she had a verucca on her foot. Yes, I know. I'm sad. :P

I met an English person with the name Merkin.
There are some interesting names listed here (http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070403125424AALq2ye).

This is true, I forgot how recently it entered the British consciousness.

And now I can't get rid of the image of Jade doing the drunken strip and showing us her 'kebab belly' among other things *shudders*

*Tigerlilley snorts because she is immature


Heh heh morecock

Trollope, Lovecraft, and some of the others (I'm not going to use Google!) . . . if you're going to use literary names, there are plenty of good ones. For some reason your list brought immediately to mind Strindberg and Swinburne; also Knut Hamsen, William Gass, Pynchon, Böll, and Grass; Cortázar, Calvino, and Eco; Beattie, Berryman, Borges, Bagehot, Bolingbroke, Bibesco, Bax, Bunyon. And so on.   ;D

Hotchkiss had something to do with cannons.  :P

I'm American (German/British/Scottish/Irish/Cherokee), and the last name is German. But, my best friend's fiance spent several years in Britain. So that's how I first heard of it. Then I started seeing it online. And of course, I'm a Fat Boy Slim fan and it's in "It's a Wonderful Night" ("whether your girl looks like a minger or a supermodel"). And, while I've heard some others pronounce it ming - err, it's definitely pronouced ming- grr.

The US 1990 census has been arranged in order of name frequency so, although it's still full of tons of common names, all you hafta do to get to the rare ones is scroll down to the bottom. Those are the rarest ones:

http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/freqnames.html

It's divided into last names, male first, and female first names.

And now for something completely different.

The Land of Cockayne (or Cockaigne) is a mythological land of plenty - something like the land of milk and honey. There's a famous painting by Bruegel on this theme and a poem. I've read some good scholarly articles that believe there's an etymological (and behavioral) reference/connection to cocaine there. Something like the wicked witch's poppy fields in Oz, the witch's candy house in Hanzel and Gretel (nibble, nibble), Pinocchio's paradise or the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Wikipedia article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockaigne

Cholmondeley= 'chumly'   That one's a keeper!


Literary names are definitely fair game, like Moorcock, though often they are more ordinary than I care to use for sims.  If they are famous or renowned enough, and I like their work in general, they probably get a street named after them.


I snatched this one from the media over the past year, there was a former NHL player named Harley Hotchkiss who died recently.  The Hotchkiss you are thinking of was involved with machine guns, maybe?  There is of course the Hotchkiss military jeep:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Jeep_Man/hotchkis.htm (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Jeep_Man/hotchkis.htm)

That name is one of my favorites, it just has it all.


Thanks for that link.  It could take lots of time to search through it, though, even starting from the bottom.

Thanks :)  That has helped my search no end.

Khan, I've got one for you. There's a local DJ who goes by the name of Craven Morehead (could be Moorehead -- I've never seen it written). I doubt if it's his real name, but I thought it was funny/clever in a juvenile sort of way. It sounds like a name that Bart Simpson would use in one of his crank calls.

Edited to remove redundancy.

/me ponders changing her name to "Bork"

I've always thought it would have been nice to be "Richard Head", but my last name wasn't cooperative. That name is so me, though.

So your first name is Richard, then ;)

There was a racehorse in NZ named Richard Cranium.

No, it isn't. It wasn't very funny with my name, so I didn't go for that option.

That reminds me of a RL family story -- my female cousin is a nurse, and she swears like a longshoreman.  After spending a week visiting, her 6 year old granddaughter went home, and one day was wondering why her mom kept calling my cousin's husband Don -- the grandkid kept insisting his name was Richard.  When asked why, she said "Because grandma always calls him Dick!"

It would appear the term "Hotchkiss gun" was used most often for a 47mm light "mountain" cannon manufactured by the French arms and automobile company Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie, founded in 1867 by an engineer from Connecticut. Some of these were bought by the U.S. Army and used in the invasions of Cuba and the Philippines in the 1890s, and against the Sioux at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Another well-known Hotchkiss gun was a 37mm revolving cannon that could fire 43 shells per minute; this was used against the Ute people in 1879.

My highschool choir teacher was named Richard Peter Dick. We called him Triple Dick.

Part of my family has the last name Pecker.

back when I was a kid, I had a teacher whos last name was Ball, her husbands first name was Harry  :D

Hardon was a pretty common first name in Norway up to about a hundred years ago.

That is a terrible, terrible thing for a parent to do to a child. *laughs her ass off*

On the subject of teachers, for woodwork I had Mr. Carpenter and my brother had Mr. Pine. The school only had two woodworks teachers.


However, earlier, I'd gone to school with a guy whose surname was Kerr. Not a bad name by itself, there are Kerrs in my family tree.

But his first name was Wayne.

There's a politician in Australia called Richard Face.  :o

Freaky..  we had a guy at school named Wayne Kerr as well.   I also had heard that many years before I went there, there was a guy called Dwayne Pipe  ;D

Astrid Lindgren, the well-known Swedish writer of children's books (Pippi Longstocking! Swedish: Pippi Långstrump), created in one of her later works, a very nice young pre-teen love couple, Ronja and Birk. Both names were "new" to Swedish naming, but the book and the film made them extremely popular and there are quiet a few Birks and Ronjas around now, in the younger generations. Ronja and Birk in the book were kind of a Romeo and Juliet couple, children of 2 competing forest robber chiefs.
In Sweden the naming habits show that ppl tend to name their kids after the grandmother/father generation, so names become popular in cycles of 75 years or so. In the 40-s and 50-s we hade wave of double first names (like Sue Ellen, Jim Bob) in Swedish: Gun-Britt, Britt-Inger, Kent-Jörgen, Sven-Bertil, ect. Those havent regained popularity YET, lol. I also love Swedish versions of Very American names, obviously from movies, sometimes spelled in a Swedish way: Violet = Vailet. My cousin, born 1951 had a classmate with that name, she was super cool and had purple colored nails.. I worshipped her at age 7, lol.

Sometimes the Hollywood inspired names were spelled right, but pronounced in Swedish, even more funny and almost impossible to explain for non-Swedes, hehe.

The Russian first names are very conservative, traditionally names of saints. My favorites in Russian is Vera (Faith) Nadezhda (Hope) and Lyubov (Love). To make things a bit more confusing Russians ALWAYS have nicknames: Nadezhda = Nadia, Tatiana = Tania, Alexander = Sasha, and patronymes as middle names: Alexander Ivanovich Petrov (Ivan's son) and you need to keep track of all of them as you noticed when reading Russian classic novels, hehe.

Soviet era brought a new kind of Russian names, popular in Russia in the 20-s and the 30-s: Traktor (tractor) Elektron or Ninel (girls name, made of Lenin backwards), and such.

Here are some classic Swedish family names: Björk, Lind, Gran, Ek, Asp, Ask, Poppel (all tree names)
Swedish soldiers in the old days were named when recruited, often with names describing them: Rolig (=Funny) Djärv (=Bold) Stark (= Strong) or animals/birds like: Duva (Pidgeon) Falk (Falcon) Örn (Eagle)
The reason for this was to get rid of all the Anderssons and Svenssons (ppl earlier mostly had had patronym last name always, and the women were Andersdotter, Jonsdotter ect.)
Most common first names in Sweden today are Erik and Maria.

And as Midsummer now starts over here, Happy Midsummer from Stockholm from
Ingeli
(Do not forget to run naked 7 times around your house tomorrow night, or you wont see your groom/bride to be ;) )
(OR pick 7 kinds of flowers to put under your pillow to dream of the same groom/bride)

Naming Tools and Guides

http://inch.stormpages.com/index.html  (http://inch.stormpages.com/index.html) -- What Not To Name The Baby

http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html  (http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/index.html)-- True Tales Of Bad, Bad Baby Names

http://nine.frenchboys.net/index.php (http://nine.frenchboys.net/index.php) -- A whole slew of name generators

Some of these 'don't name your baby this' people need to get a life.

Certainly the people who run the sites at the first two links do. The only thing I can think of is that it's supposed to be humor, and I don't get it.

For example, I worked with a black lady who was pregnant, and when her daughter was born she named her Kiesha.  I was curious, and asked her where the name came from.  It turns out that the name wasn't made up, but had African roots.  This is exactly the opposite of what the first site suggests in their first link.

We've got a lot better examples here of "don't name your baby this" than anything I saw on those sites.

Hook

The only naming no-no I believe in is "don't give a child a first name that ends in the same letter as the last name begins with", just because it makes the name hard to pronounce without having to take an unnatural pause.

Rhyming names are bad too. I once worked with somebody named Delores Flores.

Necromancy blah blah ...

Jumping here kinda late with a pretty funny name.  Totally real.  His last name was Vanderputte. What makes it funny is that pute (spelled differently) meant bitch or ho, in French slang.  He did pronounce it Vanderpoot.  I can imagine the teasing at school....oye vey.

On a different note, I tried to download that program that lets you use a word processing to import names and the link was dead.  Does anyone have it?