File that decides Maxis "townies"' names

[Ayrell]

Hi:

I remember than in TS2 there was a file in which the names the game randomly assigned to townies were, and that the contents of that file could be changed. Is there such a thing in TS3?

Thanks.

[cheapncheerful]

I'm looking forward to something like this too. The names are really odd in the english version, but they seem to be ten times odder in portuguese.

[ingeli]

Especially as they seem to think Amanda is a male name. I have, so far, had 2 male Amandas in my game. Interesting. But I SOO want an improved namelistfile, as we had in Sims2.

[SimDebster]

This was the first thing I wanted to change, but to date I haven't found it in the XML data. I find TS3 a pain to mod so far, anything going beyond a simple XML tweak has been made virtually impossible.

I have been wondering about that.  Is the near inability to mod because it needs to be that way for game speed, or whatever?  Or is EAxis trying to stop modders?  If it is the latter then EAxis is even more stupid than I thought they were since modifying the game is what has made the Sims series so popular.

[ciane]

There was mention of gender switching names on MTS. It was attributed to the insane or inappropriate traits of the parent. A girl was named Christopher and a boy Kim.

[chaos]

I'd love to have a mod for better townie names. When my townies give birth, their children get some really goofy names, sometimes.

[ingeli]

I highly doubt that. I think they just mislabelled Amanda as male. Kim, btw, is a name both gender can have, also. I think its just sloppy insanity by EA.

[Ayrell]

Thanks everyone for the input and comments, and thank you Jordi for taking the trouble to look again. Sounds tedious.

Ack, it sucks that it seems to be unmoddable. I don't understand EA's reasoning. :/

[chann]

The names are all inside the language STBL in FullBuild0.package, along with ALL of the game's text, type 0x220557DA if I remember correctly. There's one STBL for each language.

There's already couple of tools out for them: Postal and this editor on MTS. The only compatibility issue I know of is that you can't make piecemeal edits/overrides to the base STBL, so you're limited to one text mod at a time.

jordi, would be awesome to see a remake of your TS2 name mod

[Zazazu]

I'd love to have a mod for better townie names. When my townies give birth, their children get some really goofy names, sometimes.

Two of the Test girls were pregnant at the same time (well, married names Newsome and Bender, but the 11 Test kids will always be Tests to me). They had three girls between them. One was named Joanne. The other two were Chiquita and Kenyatta. The hell? I had to rename them Cindy and Kenya. Kenya is still a fairly rare name around here, but I do know a girl with the name. I've yet to meet a Kenyatta or a Chiquita that wasn't a banana. Thankfully, Ken Test and Jay Test's sons had normal names.

[Ayrell]

I'm glad a way to do this has been found, but I'm sorry that it's so annoying and hard. It sounds like that even to me, and I don't know about coding. Thanks everyone for looking into this.

I just don't know why did EA Games decide to make this game so hard to modify, seeing that as someone else said before in this thread, this franchise is so popular mainly because of the easy customization. Who knows what's on their minds...

The Spanish names are just ridiculous as well. "Hildegarda" is one I saw just yesterday, and in TS2 Vidcund and Pascal Curious were "Gumersindo" and "Pascualín"...

[gamb]

Thanks for telling us where in the STBL they are, jordi.

Is there any particular reason there are two copies of every name?  I have two instances of Aaron, Abbott, Austin, etc.

[ShortyBoo]

Since I play with Story Progression off, I've avoided townie names for the most part. If I want a family to have a baby, I play through the pregnancy and name the baby before switching to another family. The only time I missed a baby being born, it was a girl and she was named Latisha. I've only ever known 2 people named Latisha in real life and both were black. This baby was half white and half asian. I just changed her name at City Hall. Of course, now I can't rename sims at City Hall anymore for whatever reason, so I'm more careful about making sure not to let the game name the babies. The only way I can change their names is through editsim. For whatever reason, when a sim who has kids from a previous marriage gets remarried, the kids in the family end up taking their step-dad's last name, which doesn't make sense to me. So I've had to change a lot of names, but now that City Hall doesn't have the rename option, I have to do it through editsim.

[CheritaChen]

Last names: 6254 in random order from 22757 (Aaron) to 29010 (Fortier)

/snip/

Male names: 1037 in random order from 30021 (Aaron) to 31057 (Vince)

I wonder how many hours I'd have to run the game before it spat out Aaron Aaron? I think I'll keep an eye out for that one.

[chann]

I've definitely seen Precious in my game, as well as Cristian (for a girl). And Guillermo Nguyen...for a black guy?!

I think EA sourced their names from California birth records. THAT would explain the weirdness, right?

[moondance]

My game gave me a Shannon Shannon.  Also, in my Indie neighborhood, the Landgraabs decided to have another son after Malcolm:  Bubba Landgraab.  I loved that sim, and was quite sorry when he died.  For a little while there was a Misty Rains running around town, making me wish there was a Porn Star career I could put her into.  She did the next best thing though, and went into politics.

[Madame Mim]

Yeah, I had a small child Misty Summers. My Newbies (not the EA version) had another daughter and named her Consuela or Carmelita or some such - arghh - do not want.

[chann]

Misty Rains? I got Kandi Seaman.

[minidoxigirli]

I had the spare in my Legacy family get married and move out with her husband.  They had twin girls- blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin.  Their names? Tawana and Lashanda.  I have gotten some adorable names- Lexie, Sam, and Gina come to mind.

EDIT:
But how could I forget this gem?

[jobot]

My fambly's kid met a Gordon Ramsay at school. 

[CheritaChen]

My fambly's kid met a Gordon Ramsay at school. 

Did he come home crying?

[jobot]

Haha, no. I've still to switch over to the Ramsay household and check it out. 

[J. M. Pescado]

So I've had to change a lot of names, but now that City Hall doesn't have the rename option, I have to do it through editsim.

It's quite weird that City Hall no longer works for you, but if you REALLY want to rename a sim, try the "rename" command in AwesomeMod. As a side benefit, "rename" lets you bypass pesky name character limitations, so Milhouse Trixibelle Saltfucker can have his full name.

[Simsample]

This is the strangest Maxis townie name I've seen:

For the city hall renaming issue, are you trying to change the names of minors, ShortyBoo? I noticed that teens and below cannot change their own names- you have to get an adult to do it.

[Kerryee]

Man, and I've spent the morning looking for a change name Mod, only to find this.  Sorrow.

I started a new neighborhood for Legacy, started out by deleting all humans, and some of my fun new townies include Meghan Fox and Julia Stiles.  While funny, they aren't as bad as Shaquetta Woodstock (a blond, blue eyed little girl), or the newly born Albert Fish.  I'll be keeping an eye on that one.