Complete World Names Database 2.0

[venflaalachi]

Originally Posted by Carplos

I've never had an issue in the years since this was released and always get african ethnicities.

I even just downloaded the world_default from the first and "aftrican" is nowhere in the file.

I just redownloaded it and I don't see the typo either. Not sure where it came from then but "aftrican" was in my file

[ChrisG]

So I took it upon myself to revive this just a bit.

With the help of AI, I was able to code an update to this for PRESENT-DAY saves.

For instance, in the Modern US dataset, you will see more US draftees with present-day Gen Z names rather than seeing so many Dougs, Walters, etc.

I also had it create a separate Venezuelan ethnicity so it would generate a percentage of black players, since so many top players from VZ are from Afro-Venezuelan origin. (Acuna, Jackson Chourio, etc). It also rebalanced the names to be more Venezuelan-origin. It's about 10% black now. I don't believe it was generating any black players before because it was just on a default "Hispanic" nameset.

I also had it update the Dominican nameset a bit for added realism.

I also had it create a small Afro-Nicaraguan ethnicity owing to the history of a small number of players with Anglo-Caribbean origin from the country (Marvin Benard, Devern Hansack, Cheslor Cuthbert, etc -- or just look in Explore World at current players). It comes out to about 3% of the Nicaragua total.

Open to any suggestions. Again though, this is optimized for modern-day only. I don't think you would want to see Jaidens, Jaxons etc in a 1950s league lol.

Now that I have figured out how to do this, I am open to feedback or suggestions.

Remember to back up your existing files. Enjoy.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATED VERSION)

[ChrisG]

I updated in the files in the link above to fix some of the Venezuelan surname distributions (common names like Ramirez, Gonzalez etc were not showing up nearly as frequently as they should).

There is also now a new, separate Curacaoan ethnicity.

I would recommend re-downloading. Enjoy!

[Intellectual_Stick_Figure]

Hi, i've been using the previous version of this mod for a massive custom save file i have for OOTP 22. Not only do i have this mod but about 2 dozen custom countries and logos. I am thinking about upgrading to OOTP 27 due to some of the new content in that game. I know the name mod needs to be different post-23, and i see on the initial post you recommend starting a new save for the mod to work. Has there ever been a fix to that? I would like to continue this save on OOTP 27 without having to start over

[sweetpeaches966]

Originally Posted by Intellectual_Stick_Figure

Hi, i've been using the previous version of this mod for a massive custom save file i have for OOTP 22. Not only do i have this mod but about 2 dozen custom countries and logos. I am thinking about upgrading to OOTP 27 due to some of the new content in that game. I know the name mod needs to be different post-23, and i see on the initial post you recommend starting a new save for the mod to work. Has there ever been a fix to that? I would like to continue this save on OOTP 27 without having to start over

FWIW: As a result of struggling to customize this mod to my liking in the new XML format, I have found that World and Name files in saves on older versions will work just fine being converted to version that utilize the new XML format.


So, you could just convert your save from one version to the next until you hit 27 and your name and world modifications will be unaffected. Just remember to copy/paste any custom flags over. You don't need to purchase every version of the game in between to do this because the save game conversion feature does not require entering a license.

[RANGER11JP]

Originally Posted by sweetpeaches966

FWIW: As a result of struggling to customize this mod to my liking in the new XML format, I have found that World and Name files in saves on older versions will work just fine being converted to version that utilize the new XML format.


So, you could just convert your save from one version to the next until you hit 27 and your name and world modifications will be unaffected. Just remember to copy/paste any custom flags over. You don't need to purchase every version of the game in between to do this because the save game conversion feature does not require entering a license.

So will it not work in 27 or did you mean including 27?

[ChrisG]

I'm planning on coming out with an update to my update to this soon.

Here's what's in store:

-A Hispanic-Nicaraguan ethnicity with surname distributions (and some added surnames) that reflect ones disproportionately found there.

- More Curacaoan and Venezuelan first and last names, including additional "invented" first names for both ethnicities (think stuff like "Jurandrick" or "Freyner") inspired by names I've seen online. Some of the VZ "invented" ones also get added to DR if they sound like they could be used there too.

- New secondary nationality distributions optimized for the WBC.

For the US, I added some additional WBC secondary nationalities by default for teams that seem to have some (or in some cases are mostly comprised of) US-born players. So far, I added England, Nicaragua, Taiwan and South Korea.

I made 15% of Bahamian players have a secondary English nationality since a lot of the GB WBC team is comprised of Bahamian players as a Commonwealth country. That may even be a lowball figure.

- Small country surname distribution tweaks. For instance, I added a small percentage of Curacaoan surnames to the Netherlands set so you'll get players with backgrounds like Didi Gregorius or Jurrangelo Cijntje (Dutch-born of Curacao ancestry).

---

I am considering building a Colombian ethnicity as well, perhaps with distributions skewed more towards names you'd find on the Caribbean coast + a higher proportion of black players.

I'm also considering doing a Japanese-Brazilian set since they comprise a decent chunk of Brazilian baseball players. I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it though. If I can't find distributions for that specific ethnic group I may just have it take Brazilian/Portuguese first names+distributions and combine them with the Japanese surnames+distributions. So you'd get "Luiz Sato" or "Hugo Sakai" etc.

ChatGPT has been very finicky lately about large-scale coding so I'd have to see how things shake out before doing any big adds.

---

Those of you who use my updated files -- are you liking them? One thing I'm hoping is that the US players are indeed coming out a little more realistic and you're not seeing as many Gen Z Dougs or Bobs lol.

Any thoughts or suggestions on what to add or tweak?

[Ilove_Telin54]

Originally Posted by ChrisG

I'm planning on coming out with an update to my update to this soon.

Here's what's in store:

-A Hispanic-Nicaraguan ethnicity with surname distributions (and some added surnames) that reflect ones disproportionately found there.

- More Curacaoan and Venezuelan first and last names, including additional "invented" first names for both ethnicities (think stuff like "Jurandrick" or "Freyner") inspired by names I've seen online. Some of the VZ "invented" ones also get added to DR if they sound like they could be used there too.

- New secondary nationality distributions optimized for the WBC.

For the US, I added some additional WBC secondary nationalities by default for teams that seem to have some (or in some cases are mostly comprised of) US-born players. So far, I added England, Nicaragua, Taiwan and South Korea.

I made 15% of Bahamian players have a secondary English nationality since a lot of the GB WBC team is comprised of Bahamian players as a Commonwealth country. That may even be a lowball figure.

- Small country surname distribution tweaks. For instance, I added a small percentage of Curacaoan surnames to the Netherlands set so you'll get players with backgrounds like Didi Gregorius or Jurrangelo Cijntje (Dutch-born of Curacao ancestry).

---

I am considering building a Colombian ethnicity as well, perhaps with distributions skewed more towards names you'd find on the Caribbean coast + a higher proportion of black players.

I'm also considering doing a Japanese-Brazilian set since they comprise a decent chunk of Brazilian baseball players. I'm not sure how I'd go about doing it though. If I can't find distributions for that specific ethnic group I may just have it take Brazilian/Portuguese first names+distributions and combine them with the Japanese surnames+distributions. So you'd get "Luiz Sato" or "Hugo Sakai" etc.

ChatGPT has been very finicky lately about large-scale coding so I'd have to see how things shake out before doing any big adds.

---

Those of you who use my updated files -- are you liking them? One thing I'm hoping is that the US players are indeed coming out a little more realistic and you're not seeing as many Gen Z Dougs or Bobs lol.

Any thoughts or suggestions on what to add or tweak?

there any next update?

[Dutch Alexander]

Originally Posted by ChrisG

- Small country surname distribution tweaks. For instance, I added a small percentage of Curacaoan surnames to the Netherlands set so you'll get players with backgrounds like Didi Gregorius or Jurrangelo Cijntje (Dutch-born of Curacao ancestry).

This is not necessary, you can instead set a certain percentage of Dutch ethnicity to Curacaoan. The game will than take this percentage from the Curacaoan dataset. This way you will get correct combinations of first names and surnames and players will have the correct ethnicity. If you simply add Curacaoan surnames to the Netherlands dataset then these players will be caucasian with Dutch first names.

The nameset for Curacao and Aruba is horrendous in the Dogzilla set and none existent in the original set. For my fictional Dutch league I use the Dogzilla set with improved name sets for the Netherlands, Curacao and Aruba. If you're interested I can give you a list of names. The Netherlands set is perfect and based on actual census, the Aruban set is decent and based on real data, the Curacaoan is also decent but only partly based on real data. Difficult to find data for Curacao.

[ChrisG]

Originally Posted by Dutch Alexander

This is not necessary, you can instead set a certain percentage of Dutch ethnicity to Curacaoan. The game will than take this percentage from the Curacaoan dataset. This way you will get correct combinations of first names and surnames and players will have the correct ethnicity. If you simply add Curacaoan surnames to the Netherlands dataset then these players will be caucasian with Dutch first names.

Sorry! Was ambiguous there...that's exactly what I did.

[ChrisG]

OK...so after some more work, here is the update. (deprecated, see link below) As always, back up your previous files and use these at your own risk. I haven't seen any problems with the sets themselves. I am having problems with the import process on 27 that I do not believe have anything to do with the files themselves (see below).

I'll re-iterate that this is a present-day name set and names are added/weighted accordingly. So as mentioned above, in a US draft you should theoretically see more "Brayden" and "Carson" than "Roger" or "Lester."

Here are 26-player samples of what these countries look like with the lists. I did not end up doing a Colombian nameset yet.

Curacao: As mentioned, I have added a lot of "invented" first names that I either found from various sources, are variants of those, or are just entirely plausible based on naming patterns. If you look at a Curacao youth baseball roster...some of the names are wild (Qshondrickson, Mar-vidion, Zha-Djir) I didn't go too crazy.

Cleaned up a lot of Dutch (and other) surnames that had been added by the AI in coding that don't appear to actually be present on the island. May not have gotten every single one. I updated the name distributions to be about 80% of the Curacaoan nameset, but you will still see some from the Aruba, Bonairian and Dutch-Carib sets still mixed in, they've just been tamped down considerably with the Curacao nameset. You will also see Venezuelan and Dominican namesets to reflect that population on the island, along with the occasional English-Caribbean name.



Nicaragua: This sample doesn't include any from the Afro-Nicaraguan set, but of the Hisp-Nicaraguan set, you'll be seeing more Blandons and Loaisigas, etc. Bucardo, for instance, on this is an "only in Nicaragua" example. The first name distributions are standard Hispanic.

For those wondering, the Afro-Nicaraguan set was based on lists from the Corn Islands and South Caribbean Coast region (though obviously players will show up as being born anywhere). Ones you'll see pop up include Downs, Hodgson and Sjogreen.



Venezuelan: A few updates to this, added some surnames that basically appear to be only in VZ and as mentioned before, added some more "invented" first names into the mix.



Let me know if these import in 27.

I have had trouble importing any world_default.xml in 27, even a vanilla, original world_default.xml (i.e. the one that comes with the game). It fails probably 95% of the time -- but will successfully import in about 5% of attempts.

All of that makes me assume that it is a problem with the game's import process itself and not anything custom. Or maybe it's just my copy's process. Names.xml imports perfectly fine on 27 and both of these files import with no issues on 26.

As always, open to tweaks and suggestions.

[Ilove_Telin54]

Originally Posted by ChrisG

OK...so after some more work, here is the update. As always, back up your previous files and use these at your own risk. I haven't seen any problems with the sets themselves. I am having problems with the import process on 27 that I do not believe have anything to do with the files themselves (see below).

Here are 26-player samples of what these countries look like with the lists. I did not end up doing a Colombian nameset yet.

Curacao: As mentioned, I have added a lot of "invented" first names that I either found from various sources, are variants of those, or are just entirely plausible based on naming patterns. If you look at a Curacao youth baseball roster...some of the names are wild (Qshondrickson, Mar-vidion, Zha-Djir) I didn't go too crazy.

Cleaned up a lot of Dutch (and other) surnames that had been added by the AI in coding that don't appear to actually be present on the island. May not have gotten every single one. I updated the name distributions to be about 80% of the Curacaoan nameset, but you will still see some from the Aruba, Bonairian and Dutch-Carib sets still mixed in, they've just been tamped down considerably with the Curacao nameset. You will also see Venezuelan and Dominican namesets to reflect that population on the island, along with the occasional English-Caribbean name.



Nicaragua: This sample doesn't include any from the Afro-Nicaraguan set, but of the Hisp-Nicaraguan set, you'll be seeing more Blandons and Loaisigas, etc. Bucardo, for instance, on this is an "only in Nicaragua" example. The first name distributions are standard Hispanic.

For those wondering, the Afro-Nicaraguan set was based on lists from the Corn Islands and South Caribbean Coast region (though obviously players will show up as being born anywhere). Ones you'll see pop up include Downs, Hodgson and Sjogreen.



Venezuelan: A few updates to this, added some surnames that basically appear to be only in VZ and as mentioned before, added some more "invented" first names into the mix.



Let me know if these import in 27.

I have had trouble importing any world_default.xml in 27, even a vanilla, original world_default.xml (i.e. the one that comes with the game). It fails probably 95% of the time -- but will successfully import in about 5% of attempts.

All of that makes me assume that it is a problem with the game's import process itself and not anything custom. Or maybe it's just my copy's process. Names.xml imports perfectly fine on 27 and both of these files import with no issues on 26.

As always, open to tweaks and suggestions.

add more name for portuguese, Galician, Catalan and Basque

[willboat75]

I created a template from the MLB world I had made since I changed a number of things. In the original version of the save, the new Names xml was fine, and players were generating with ethnically appropriate names.

I'm betting that this new issue I've discovered, which I've linked below, is due to the World_Default file not importing correctly when starting a new save with that template. I am getting a lot of Venezuelans with Korean names and Cubans with German names.

[ChrisG]

Are you using mine or the original?

[willboat75]

yours

[ChrisG]

Hmmmm very odd. Have you downloaded the latest patch? There was an issue with world_default not importing correctly before that since been resolved.

I'm going to put out an update soon that is coming in cleanly (I generate players in a test save to make sure everything looks right)...but so did the existing one. So I'm guessing nobody else is having this problem with the existing files since I've had 53 downloads so far and you're the only one who's said anything thus far.

[willboat75]

I downloaded .52 when it was beta but have not updated since. I'll get the patch from the release .52 and see if anything changes.

[ChrisG]

Going to go ahead and put out this update. Download it here. Again, bear in mind (and you will see why below) -- this is really only engineered for present-day+future saves.

Aruba is a big update. I went one step short of blowing the Aruba nameset up and rebuilding it from scratch. But it might as well have been. I felt it was too continental Dutch and East Indian.

Many last names on the island are of Dutch origin, of course, but look at any modern sports roster (or The Baseball Cube's listing of players), and no one is named Gijs or Jaap. So the Dutch first names are now totally gone from that set.

Click the thumbnail to see what a sample "40-man roster" of Arubans looks like.



And this is what the Aruba world file looks like now.


I also did an extensive re-weighting of the USA nameset and further downweighted "old guy" names (though they are obviously still present) that are no longer as popular. The results are more present-day...which means I also upweighted a few "old guy" names that are becoming popular again (Arthur for instance). But you'll see fewer Bills, Garys, Ricks, etc.

Also added some additional names ("Colson" wasn't in the original set apparently) and added a few more second nationalities that I felt were realistic to appear more than just at random (DR/Venezuela, and, at smaller distributions, Haiti, Czech Republic, Nigeria, Ukraine, etc.)

Here's a 40-man sample.



Also did more work on the Curacao nameset. I downweighted a lot of "old guy" English first names that are in there, so the "island" names should appear much more often alongside more modern English first names (I've discovered they really like Jayden and variants there lol).



Enjoy! The import issue on 27 was fixed with the latest patch so you all should have no issue with these. They import fine for me and I haven't encountered any weirdness. But if you encounter something off, let me know.

[ChrisG]

UPDATE: I discovered coding errors where some Spanish last names had been coded as first names and some separate names mistakenly had the same ID, which I assume cancelled things out. These have been fixed.

While fixing that, I took some time to do further updates. Much in the same way I’ve downweighted “old man” American names, I downweighted some “old man” Spanish-language names as well (think Porfirio, etc).

I also made some additions/adjustments here and there.

The new link can be found here or in the post above. Enjoy and apologies for the errors.

[trlp1712]

Originally Posted by ChrisG

UPDATE: I discovered coding errors where some Spanish last names had been coded as first names and some separate names mistakenly had the same ID, which I assume cancelled things out. These have been fixed.

While fixing that, I took some time to do further updates. Much in the same way I’ve downweighted “old man” American names, I downweighted some “old man” Spanish-language names as well (think Porfirio, etc).

I also made some additions/adjustments here and there.

The new link can be found here or in the post above. Enjoy and apologies for the errors.

Thank you very much Chris, wonderful work!