Author Topic: Soldier names  (Read 91440 times)

Offline powerc80

  • Sergeant
  • **
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2012, 02:41:18 am »
Yeah I'm not sure which is better, accuracy or readability. Wouldn't that require Russian names to be in Cyrillic, etc? Every X-Com-like game (even the new one with tons of nationalities) seems to only uses the standard A-Z alphabet for soldier names, no national characters. But given most of us in this forum are used to funky alphabets, it's hard to get an unbiased opinion. :P

Would you rather see a soldier name list full of glyphs or just standard characters? Remember that soldier names are global (language-specific names would be a ton of work)

We should probably at least give it try it with the full list of Latin derived glyphs (French, Polish, Hungarian, etc), and exclude the Cyrillic/Japanese/Chinese/Non-Latin alphabets. If that doesn't quite look correct, or if the text is hard to read, then we can go back.

On the other hand, if we restrict to the standard A-Z then it will probably mean a more uniform and professional looking end-result.

Honestly, I'm on the fence about this one... :)

In the meantime, I'll start adding new names to the French soldier list, since it is rather small.

As a side note SupSuper, could you add the new French bitmap letters I designed at: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,371.msg6492.html#msg6492

Offline luke83

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 1558
    • View Profile
    • openxcommods
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2012, 03:04:41 am »
Lets stick to the standard A-Z , i have enough trouble with them ;)

Offline powerc80

  • Sergeant
  • **
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2012, 04:31:25 am »
Alright, here are the new French soldier names.

A lot more variety than the old names... :)

Offline radius75

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 108
  • I am the average PC user!
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2012, 09:22:58 am »
« Last Edit: October 20, 2012, 09:37:50 am by radius75 »

Offline Mr. Quiet

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 523
  • Likes: Quiet things. Dislikes: Loud things.
    • View Profile
    • =Open_X_Com= Mods
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #19 on: October 27, 2012, 11:02:25 pm »
I finished my list! I'm happy to do something for OpenXcom. Wish I had mad coding skills so I can help you guys finish the game! But I'm only an appliance salesman.

Anyways, Spanish names for King Sup!

Also added a pic I found. Steampunk X-COM, I think.

Offline darkestaxe

  • Colonel
  • ****
  • Posts: 254
  • Emissary of the Brain
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #20 on: November 04, 2012, 11:05:19 pm »
I'm a very weird kind of pervert and I decided a while back that I want all my soldiers to be valley girls. So here's my list of US chick names.

This is roughly just all the common girls names in the US, selected based on naming census data from California and it's pretty complete, I actually did more selecting against cali-specific names then for them. The only problem is that these names are more likely representative of the girls who will become legal to screw in a couple more years then likely soldiers in 1999.

I also have last names based on what's most common in the US. I updated these and I think the current differences in ethnic proportions from 1999 are probably way more then reversed by the very small number of very common Hispanic names in the US (they're all Garcia) although actually the worst is Smith, shared by whites and blacks and accounting for 1% of the US total population. Actually the biggest problem is probably just when you get mismatched names like Stephanie Miller and she's Asain or Evelyn Bradley and she's black. They were renamed by their adoptive parents...?

Offline Mr. Quiet

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 523
  • Likes: Quiet things. Dislikes: Loud things.
    • View Profile
    • =Open_X_Com= Mods
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #21 on: November 05, 2012, 10:41:35 am »
Give new recruits a 5% chance to get a first name from any random country, and 95% chance to have a name that's based off the list from the last name. I think it makes sense. I know people with uncommon names :D like me!

Offline GraemeMor

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #22 on: May 16, 2013, 06:54:30 pm »
I've created a set of Irish names.

Updated after I checked some of the others and realised the wasn't a limit to the amount of names I could add.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2013, 07:14:49 pm by GraemeMor »

Offline Lord Hoot

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #23 on: May 17, 2013, 02:00:24 pm »
Guys I don't know if you're still interested in these, but I feel non-white representation is slightly lacking in the name lists so far. For your consideration, some Arab names. More to come (i'm thinking Nigerian, Chinese, maybe Indian if i'm up to the challenge), if you're interested.

Offline kkmic

  • Commander
  • *****
  • Posts: 582
  • Undefined
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #24 on: May 17, 2013, 02:55:04 pm »
Any name is a good one :)

Feel free to add any names you want (for as long as they're decent/non-offending)

Offline Lord Hoot

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #25 on: May 17, 2013, 04:03:22 pm »
Thanks! Here's a list for Nigeria, Africa's most populous country (and XCOM funding nation).

Note this is an unholy mishmash of Yoruba, Igbo and other names that i'm sure will throw up combinations that look silly to a native, but it gives a flavour of the country for the rest of us  ;)


Offline Lord Hoot

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 6
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #26 on: May 17, 2013, 06:09:32 pm »
Chinese. I've used western forenames, because 1. it's easier for me, 2. Chinese people working for an international organisation will usually adopt a western name and 3. it makes more sense if you plan to make forenames interchangeable between nationalities to some extent.

I've tried to use western names that are commonly chosen by Chinese/Taiwanese people.

Offline hmaon

  • Sergeant
  • **
  • Posts: 40
  • C jockey
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #27 on: May 17, 2013, 10:41:05 pm »
Thanks! Here's a list for Nigeria, Africa's most populous country (and XCOM funding nation).

Note this is an unholy mishmash of Yoruba, Igbo and other names that i'm sure will throw up combinations that look silly to a native, but it gives a flavour of the country for the rest of us  ;)

Maybe separate files for names from the different languages would be less silly then? I don't know much about Nigeria, though.

Offline turbor

  • Squaddie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #28 on: May 18, 2013, 12:19:43 am »
Ok, wanting to contribute I made two files.
One for Belgium containing both Flemish and French names, and one for the Netherlands.
I included comments in the file, I assume that the yaml parser won't barf on it.  :)

Volutar

  • Guest
Re: Soldier names
« Reply #29 on: May 18, 2013, 08:16:07 am »
Nigerian units must be 100% black. And chineese - yellow, but currently there is no such ratio for each nation, this it would be more confident to keep any mono-racial nation from adding to xcom before that ratio will be implemented.