What names would you like to see in OOTP:BM?

[a1steak]

Is that Africa file a file for African-American names or actually from Africa?

[battists]

Originally Posted by Long_Long_Name

Out of curiosity... how the hell did you manage to come up with a unified African file, given the dozens and hundreds of nationalities present?

Frankly . . . it will be a mix of different African names.

While we'd love to be able to come up with country-specific names data for over 200 countries, it just ain't gonna happen. There is a point of diminishing returns as well, since the # of players who are interested in accurate African files probably isn't the same as for, for example, Japanese names.

What we're doing is this:

a. Where possible, use census-based data for each country
b. Where not possible, use an ethnicity-based file for the country (i.e. Hispanic names for all Spanish-speaking countries, African names for all African countries)
c. Where no data is available, for example for places like Nepal, use U.S. names (just because they have to have some kind of names).

We understand, of course, that we could end up with players in, say, Cote D'Ivoire with distinctly Kenyan names, but that's about what we're stuck with right now.

Oh, and the African file is for African names, not African-American names.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by battists

Noticeably "ethnic" African American names are not currently included in the U.S. names file because there's no way to prevent the occurrence or frequency of awkward combinations like "LaShawn Geisel" or some such.

Apart from creating a separate file for ethnic African American names, there's not really any way to handle this right now. You could include the ethnic African American names, and edit out the weird combinations, or you can NOT include them, and edit them in. Of course, the current U.S. names file should generate many names that would be suitable for African American players (like "Ryan Howard" or "Barry Bonds," for example). You just won't see names like "Asante," I don't think.

Exactly correct.

Someone needs to compile at least two African-American name file sets: a more traditional one, and one reflecting the "super-black" names that begin to appear in the seventies. There might even be a need for another one, a more historical set, for the Negro League days.

[The Funk]

Gareth. Gareth needs to be in the mix.

[cdheer]

And Heathcliffe! Have to have Heathcliffe. Also Yul. And how about Cornelius?

--chris

P.S.

Originally Posted by Charleton

Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty apes!"

[Malleus Dei]

Version 1.0 of my OOTP Replacement Name File Set has been sent out to its former testers as well as to BBSC and SimLeague Central. Fidel Montoya will probably have it up and available soon on his site.

[99Ballons]

Originally Posted by jcurtis423

I understand your reasoning behind this (trying not to have any joke/funny names appear randomly), but on the other hand who would have ever thought there'd be a Milton Bradley or a Coco Crisp playing Major League Baseball?

I agree with jcurtis. We shouldn't take out 'Bunch' just because it has the potential of sounding funny. Bunch is a real name and I'm getting pretty tired of seeing the same names over again in 6.5.

Also, we should make one with community members, and funny names.
Anyone can type the phone book into a file. What's the point otherwise. I remember drafting a guy in Mogul named "Ron Mexico". I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

[Malleus Dei]

Felix and Jazzrack both have the OOTP Replacement Name File Set available for downloading on their web sites. The positive feedback on it has been amazing.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by 99Ballons

I agree with jcurtis. We shouldn't take out 'Bunch' just because it has the potential of sounding funny. Bunch is a real name

Well, you're in luck, I put it back in.

Originally Posted by 99Ballons

and I'm getting pretty tired of seeing the same names over again in 6.5.

Well, you can cure that problem for sure by downloading and installing the Replacement Name File Set for OOTP.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by 99Ballons

Anyone can type the phone book into a file.

There's a *lot* more to it than that, amigo.

[battists]

Just a quick update. The following sets of name data have been completed:

U.S. English
Hispanic
Japanese
Dutch
German
French
Italian
Norwegian
Russian
Scottish
Arabic
French-Canadian

Everything that was listed in previous status reports as in progress is still underway. If ANYONE has spare time and is interested in helping create realistic non-US names in the game, please let me know.

If the game went live today (and Markus used our data), the names would be many times better than what OOTP offers today. But, there's still plenty of room for improvement for those of you interested in realistic worldwide baseball!

And of course, thank you everyone who has contributed time or ideas to this thread!

Steve

[RBLwebguy]

A lot of names indeed and thanks to Steve for coordinating and working on it as well. I did 3 complete name sets with 3 others in progress and it is very time consuming. Can't wait to see the work in the game itself.

[Malleus Dei]

Is anyone actually doing a Korean set?

[f.montoya]

I think a Korean set is a must. But I don't want to make anyone work harder than they already have.

[Long_Long_Name]

Originally Posted by f.montoya

I think a Korean set is a must. But I don't want to make anyone work harder than they already have.

If people really wanted to have it in the game, wouldn't they volunteer to make it? I guess that's what many of us did.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by f.montoya

I think a Korean set is a must. But I don't want to make anyone work harder than they already have.

I appreciate that, Fidel.

[battists]

South Korean is absolutely a must.

To date, we have a nice set of 180 South Korean last names. complete with accurate frequencies, from ROK government data. South Korean last names are actually few in number, with fully 20% of the population being "Kim"s. First names have proven trickier, as the South Korean method of creating first names is aimed to make each name nearly unique. I have some data, but it's far from robust, and to be honest, I got dragged onto other things.

If anyone wants to offer to leg out Korean male given names, raise your hand!

[beorn]

One option I would like to see --- having all last names equally common. Personally, I like to see a league with a minimum of last name repetition. Not for everyone, but at a cost of realism, it sure makes tracking players a lot easier.

[Long_Long_Name]

Originally Posted by beorn

One option I would like to see --- having all last names equally common. Personally, I like to see a league with a minimum of last name repetition. Not for everyone, but at a cost of realism, it sure makes tracking players a lot easier.

If the name databases are in text format, that would be very easy to edit.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by beorn

One option I would like to see --- having all last names equally common. Personally, I like to see a league with a minimum of last name repetition. Not for everyone, but at a cost of realism, it sure makes tracking players a lot easier.

Easy to do. Use a text editor and replace every other number (0,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) in the last name file you want to change with "1." Then repeatedly replace "11" with "1" until every value is a "1."

Or read the file into a spreadsheet (like the free one that comes with OpenOffice) and change all the numerical values to "1."

There are many other ways to do it but these two will work just fine.