marriage and last names.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Or a simpler idea might just be whichever parent has the most best friends!

[Oddysey]

This prestige based last name business sounds most interesting. Would be useful for when I go on one of my tribal organization kicks.

If a family name that I like (stupid townie names are exempt from this) is in danger of dying out due to having no married couples with it that are having more kids and no unmarried males, I usually have one female sim with the name have a kid before she gets married. (With her future husband, of course, to avoid weirdness in the family tree. I can deal with alien necessitated weirdness, but I avoid any other case of sims having kids with more than one sim.) I got into that habit after it happened accidentally and fortuitously, because I had a couple being weird and not rolling up get engaged wants, so I was putting it off, but the woman (family sim) did want to have a baby.

I've got to start keeping my own records of my sims genealogies. I've got a program for it, and it can output all sorts of different nifty things, not just the Sims 2 tree.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Alternatively, you could have a female sim have a gay relationship and join union, usin her name.  Then you can go into simPE, treat one of them as male, and they can have as many babies as you want with the family name.

[veilchen]

Alternatively, you could have a female sim have a gay relationship and join union, usin her name.  Then you can go into simPE, treat one of them as male, and they can have as many babies as you want with the family name.

I've never tried the 'treat as female/male' option ZZ. Is that all it does, make the sim able to become pregnant? Can you safely turn them back to the proper (displayed) gender when they are done with the pregnancy? I'm always afraid I mess up my sim or my files when trying something out. I probably should do what many players do and build an experiment neighborhood, but I do have so little time to do anything lately

G.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yes, you can just turn them back again.  The only thing it does apart from let them either get pregnant (if male) or make pregnant (if female) is their voice changes!  They look the same and still wear the same clothes - but male sims who get pregnant this way don't get the green alien maternity smock!   And if their partner is totally turned off the opposite sex, it doesn't affect their own relationship, so I guess they are still really the original sex, just with modifications!

[Liss]

I actually think babies taking their mother's name makes more sense, but that is just me.  If a woman gives birth to a child, it is definitely *her* child.  In the days before DNA testing, you couldn't really say for sure who a child's father was.

[ZephyrZodiac]

But with your sims, you know when the music plays!  So you know who the father is for certain!

[J. M. Pescado]

I actually think babies taking their mother's name makes more sense, but that is just me.  If a woman gives birth to a child, it is definitely *her* child.

I think that's mostly as a "standard" case, as sims don't necessarily have an actual father.

In the days before DNA testing, you couldn't really say for sure who a child's father was.

That would really depend on who the father was.

[ZephyrZodiac]

In the days before DNA testing, you couldn't really say for sure who a child's father was.

That would really depend on who the father was.

And the mother!

[gali]

In the days before DNA testing, you couldn't really say for sure who a child's father was.

That would really depend on who the father was.

And the mother!

Lol, ZZ, you remind me: when my daughter was born, she had the face of her father, and one of my friends said: "well, we know who the father is - but who is the mother?".

[ZephyrZodiac]

Did you hide your bulge that well?

[gali]

It seems so, lol. I only added 40 pounds to my wieght....

[ZephyrZodiac]

You did well, then!  (Maybe too well......!)

[Oddysey]

Interestingly enough, babies do tend to favor their fathers in appearance, but particularly humans tend to notice their resemblance to their father and remark on it more than their resemblance to their mother.

What in the world would you get for Brandi Broke's kids if you DNA tested them? And what the DNA of alien spawn look like?

[ZephyrZodiac]

Interestingly enough, babies do tend to favor their fathers in appearance, but particularly humans tend to notice their resemblance to their father and remark on it more than their resemblance to their mother.

I would have given anything as a child to be told I resembled my father!  But all I ever got wss "Isn't she like you Florrie!!"  Needless to say, we always thought my father was the good-looking parent!

[themaltesebippy]

In Japan, IIRC, it's traditional to take the family name that has more prestige. Male/female is unimportant.

That's how I do it in my town.  Just ask Darren Capp!  Dreamer and Goth don't mean nuttin' in this town honey, go back to Pleasantville where someone cares cuz I don't!! 

[veilchen]

I do it the way we do it at home, pick the last name I like best. In Germany the bride and groom can pick either name, it's completely up to them. That law has been around for about 15+ years now, and no one seems to be complaining.

G.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I think legally there's nothing in the UK to prevent that, and never has been - often a wealthy family with only a daughter to inherit would insist on the girl's husband taking the family name so the line could be seen to continue!  However, unless the husband has a really awful name (like Sidebottom or Pigg) then tradition is still on the husband's side!

[DrBeast]

Here in Greece tradition still talks, so only in some cases does the bride keep her last name along with her husband's. In the Sims however you could just go ahead and change the last name after the marriage (or anytime you want for that matter!) with SimPE and still keep JM's mod.

[DuckSpeak]

In Korea where I used to live (That is NORTH Korea where The Sims 2 plays YOU  ) the children almost always take their father's surname, while the bride and groom keep theirs. Rather practical, considering that most of the population are constricted to a small surname pool. (Rather like the Sims, heh.)

I like to keep every family name intact so I decided against the hack.

[witch]

I do it the way we do it at home, pick the last name I like best. In Germany the bride and groom can pick either name, it's completely up to them. That law has been around for about 15+ years now, and no one seems to be complaining. G.

Do many couples choose to take the female's name?

[veilchen]

Do many couples choose to take the female's name?

Surprisingly, the range is pretty high. I have a friend who works at the county residents affairs office and he tells me the ratio is around 65 to 35 and steadliy balancing out. Germany has a serious problem with population decline, and many couples have only one child. If it's a girl, and the groom has other siblings,, the girl's name will most likely be chosen at marriage. If both are single children then they would have some thinking to do :D

G.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Would they then look to first cousins to see if the family name was being continued by one or more of them?

[veilchen]

That would be just about the only other option ZZ. In our case that ship has sailed. My father had 3 sisters and 1 brother. The brother had 2 daughters, one got married and took her husband's name. My other cousin would probably only get married if under threat of imminent death, meaning she would not give up her independence for all the tea in China. I have 1 sister and 2 brothers. My sister also took her husbands name (no siblings or cousins in my brother in law's family). One of my brothers adopted his wife's daughter from a previous marriage and refuses to have any other children. My other brother... well, let's just say that the odds of him getting married are slim to none.  All hope of carrying on the name are on the adopted child, otherwise the family name that can be traced all the way back to the 13th century will be gone. Almost the same goes for my mother's lineage.

Oh well, I don't really care all that much about it, but the families are of some social prominence in the region, so my father is not too happy. Ah, the complications of European lineages.

G.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I think it's much the same everywhere in the "civilised" world!  I'll bet you there's an Ozzie sheep farmer who can trace his lineage right back to the first convict ship who would hate for the family name to die with him!