Grossly Inaccurate USA Name Set

[bababui]

For fun I wanted to rename a player who is American. I hit the 'regenerate name' button. Over and over. More than 100 times. The last names were either of British or Latino origen. No German surnames..even though they make up the largest ethnic group in this country. Didn't see any Italian names. No Irish names. No Slavic names. No Jewish or Middle Eastern names. No Eastern Asian names.

This needs to be fixed in the next patch because arbitrarily leaving out names that are a part of the American tapestry borders on the offensive.


I will randemly cycle through 10 names


Luis Zaragosa

Rob Hawkins

Jerome Lambert

Dave Wolf

Chris McCoy

Mike Humes

Bob Christenson

Arnold Wilcox

Felipe Soto

Bob Little


These names dont come close to being a fair cross-section of America.


I have come across a couple Irish names in subsequent regenerations but none of the other ethnicities.

[sfnate]

Originally Posted by bababui

For fun I wanted to rename a player who is American. I hit the 'regenerate name' button. Over and over. More than 100 times.

In the time it took you to hit the 'regenerate name' button over 100 times, you could have manually renamed that player to whatever name you wanted, plus have tweaked the name files so that German surnames would come up at the frequency you desire.

Never leave to chance what you can accomplish on your own.

[bababui]

10 randomly generated names when Nationality is Israeli

Rich Bradshaw

Jamal Abdul-Hamid

Tony Hutchinson

Isam Taymullah

Jason Deverell

Thomas Sullivan

Bill Wilson

Sami Karda

Ed Clark

Jonathan McGee


Maybe there is a bug here

[bababui]

Originally Posted by sfnate

In the time it took you to hit the 'regenerate name' button over 100 times, you could have manually renamed that player to whatever name you wanted, plus have tweaked the name files so that German surnames would come up at the frequency you desire.

Never leave to chance what you can accomplish on your own.

And for the rest of the missing nationalities??

[Claymore]

Originally Posted by bababui

10 randomly generated names when Nationality is Israeli

Jonathan McGee


Maybe there is a bug here

Perhaps the Irish are one of the lost 10 tribes?
(Markus knows something we don't )

[sfnate]

Originally Posted by bababui

And for the rest of the missing nationalities??

Well, yes, I see your point, but I just don't think that it's realistic to expect that the random name generation in OOTP 2007 is going to accurately reflect the melting pot diversity of the USA. For countries that are largely homogeneous (eg, Japan or Korea and various others), it's much easier to get acceptable results. But unless SI completely overhauls the way names are generated, I think we're going to have to take on the task of finessing the files and manually adjusting individual players to really get anything that approaches reality.

[Prodigal Son]

I don't think OOTP has to recreate America perfectly, but it would be nice if it made an effort to include different name origins. So I think this is a valid issue.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by sfnate

Well, yes, I see your point, but I just don't think that it's realistic to expect that the random name generation in OOTP 2007 is going to accurately reflect the melting pot diversity of the USA. For countries that are largely homogeneous (eg, Japan or Korea and various others), it's much easier to get acceptable results.

Why not?

But unless SI completely overhauls the way names are generated, I think we're going to have to take on the task of finessing the files and manually adjusting individual players to really get anything that approaches reality.

And why are a vast majority of the names of what we might call Anglo-Saxon origens?? The 'out-of-the-box set-up is completely unacceptable. Jews dont play baseball in America? Poles? Non-Euro/Non-Latinos??

[bababui]

Originally Posted by Prodigal Son

I don't think OOTP has to recreate America perfectly, but it would be nice if it made an effort to include different name origins. So I think this is a valid issue.

Well said. No one is expecting perfection but it would be nice to make an effort.

[sfnate]

Originally Posted by bababui

Jews dont play baseball in America? Poles? Non-Euro/Non-Latinos??

I think the problem is how the names are generated, not the names that are in the files. If you look at the files themselves, there is a diversity of names therein, Jewish and otherwise. I'm sure that the files could be improved, but my understanding is that census records were used to determine which names should be included. It appears to me that the algorithm used to create full names is not up to the task of retrieving and pairing first and last names in a way that captures reality. But this is not a criticism, really: when you think of where the development effort has been focused, I'm sure it's been mostly preoccupied with getting the gameplay and AI working correctly.

[SSG Troyer]

The names file cannot represent American diversity any more than it already does, since it is ripped straight from the 2000 Census. If we are lucky, maybe someone will be kind enough to do it again after 2010 comes in ...

Can't speak for the Isrealis, though.

I agree, there may need to be some attention payed to the pairings of first and last names. But there are much bigger fish to fry in this pig-iron pan.

[battists]

I think it's a bug. That is, when you click "Regenerate Name," I don't think it's looking in any specific nationality. I think it's just picking a random name from the entire set of names. For example, there is no "Sullivan" in the Israeli name set, so it's clearly not basing the name on the currently selected player's nationality.

If you look through the names.txt file, I think you'll find that German names as well as many others are well-represented. The data originated from US Census data.

Anyway, there are no name set changes planned for any patch at this point...

[SSG Troyer]

Originally Posted by battists

I think it's a bug. That is, when you click "Regenerate Name," I don't think it's looking in any specific nationality...

I've waited three months to say this ...

Did you TT it?

[battists]

Originally Posted by SSG Troyer

I've waited three months to say this ...

Did you TT it?

Er...*slinks away*

Actually, I was going to test it out myself after I get back from hockey...

[Solack]

Originally Posted by battists

Er...*slinks away*

Actually, I was going to test it out myself after I get back from hockey...

Hockey? What's that?

SLACKER!!!!!!!!

[Dogzilla]

For fun I wanted to rename a player who is American. I hit the 'regenerate name' button. Over and over. More than 100 times. The last names were either of British or Latino origen. No German surnames..even though they make up the largest ethnic group in this country. Didn't see any Italian names. No Irish names. No Slavic names. No Jewish or Middle Eastern names. No Eastern Asian names.

You're right, but it's easy enough to correct. I've been working on a new USA name file, I'll post it today in the names section of the mods forum if you want to check it out. I used deeper census data, so the top 18000 names in the US are represented, and this is where a lot of Italian, Slavic and Asian names start showing up.

As for the Israeli names, there is no Israeli name set by default. I've made one and replaced set 39 (US-Historical), so you can check that out too.

[bababui]

Originally Posted by Dogzilla

You're right, but it's easy enough to correct. I've been working on a new USA name file, I'll post it today in the names section of the mods forum if you want to check it out. I used deeper census data, so the top 18000 names in the US are represented, and this is where a lot of Italian, Slavic and Asian names start showing up.

As for the Israeli names, there is no Israeli name set by default. I've made one and replaced set 39 (US-Historical), so you can check that out too.

Thanks Dogzilla

You rock

[Dogzilla]

My new names file was too big for the forums, I sent it to www.ootpmodsquad.com.

[The Wolf]

Political Correctness gone wild. First you complained about those of us using historically accurate ethnicities files for historical gaming, and now you complain about the stock names file, which according to everyone is simply taken from, what a shock, the last set of U.S. Census data.

Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be. Gee, American minority groups in real life end up being American minority groups in OOTP? Well, darn. Must be some kind of majority group conspiracy.

NOT.

Please get over this problem you have with history and reality, as it's gotten way old. You don't like the name files? No problem. As Marc Duffy tells us all the time: "It's your game." You have a text editor. I happen to know the stock ethnicity and name files that come with the game can be readily modified with a text editor and the help of the documentation in the manual because I have done it myself. Have at it. Since you don't care for reality, please feel free to make it into whatever it is that you do like.

Also, your avatar's information says that you live in California. If this is true, then be aware that you almost certainly have a very false view of American ethnicity, as California is one of the most unrepresentative states in the country from which anyone could draw conclusions about national ethnicity ratios.

Please see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census_2000

for factual clarification

[sixto]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Political Correctness gone wild. First you complained about those of us using historically accurate ethnicities files for historical gaming, and now you complain about the stock names file, which according to everyone is simply taken from, what a shock, the last set of U.S. Census data...

Wow. You could be a bigger jerk about it, but it wouldn't be easy.

SSGTroyer may have asserted that the names file are based on the 2000 U.S. Census, but that doesn't make it true, nor does that fact alone make the file any good.

In fact, the default names file is undeniably culturally insensitive. How? Although Garcia and Martinez are two of the 100 most common surnames in America, they are completely missing from the (modern) U.S. names file. You may have heard of a few baseball players who fall into this name category. Alex Rodriguez ring a bell? How about Nomar Garciaparra? No? Mike Gonzalez ring a bell? Rod Barajas? Johnny Estrada? Matt Garza?

The distribution of names is also awful. Far too tipped toward the most common names.

I've spent quite a bit of time with the default names.txt file and it is flawed. Fixably flawed, yes. But flawed. Let's ignore the fact that it doesn't have any Spanish or Latin American surnames. Or such outrageously ethnic names like Kowalski, Koslofski, Loviglio, Bernadini, Krauszer or Karstens. What it does have is literally thousands of English, Irish and Scottish names that are equally uncommon. Know a lot of O'Scurrys, do you?

You may not like the proliferation of Latin Americans in the United States, but I didn't realize you also had hatred for Polacks, Italians and Germans.

I am also working on a revised names file that is more culturally sensitive. If I get a chance I will post it somewhere. Once it's tested and ready, of course.