Historical Hispanic first names

[joefromchicago]

I hadn't planned on doing any new namesets (at least until I revise all of my American-Ethnic namesets - a long-term project), but Bottom of the Sixth identified the need for a nameset that is appropriate for Latin-American players in the early years of baseball.

As far as I can tell, OOTP's standard Hispanic namesets (nameset 1) are pretty good for the modern game. The surname set contains 16,662 entries, which is really comprehensive. In skimming that list, I didn't see anything that I'd change, so there's no need to come up with a new set for that.

First names, however, are a different story. In the last fifty years or so, there has been a trend in Latin-American countries, especially Cuba, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, for parents to give their kids unique and distinctive names. I mentioned this trend in connection with my Dominican nameset. OOTP's nameset reflects this trend. It has 829 entries, including such names as Yorvit, Wascar, Runelvys, and Kelvim. That's great for players who want to create a modern league, but not so great for players who want to recreate Latin-American baseball in, say, the 1920s. The Catholic church used to be pretty strict about what names priests would accept at baptism. If it wasn't a saint's name or some other suitably religious moniker (e.g. Jesus, Salvador, Domingo), the priest wouldn't agree to baptize the child. So if there was no St. Yorvit, you wouldn't name your kid Yorvit. That led to a lot of boys being named Jose, Juan, Miguel, Francisco, etc. Not much variety, but that's just the way it was. My set, as a result, has only 283 entries.

In making this set, I took the OOTP Hispanic names and I culled out the unusual modern names. There was also a surprising number of women's names in the set - I axed those too. Then I added some nicknames (e.g. Mike, Pete, Sal) that I thought Hispanic players in the US might adopt (like, for instance, Mike Gonzalez, originally Miguel). And I also added a few names from the rosters of the "Cuban" teams that played in the Negro Leagues. Finally, I adjusted many of the frequencies. The end result is this Historical Hispanic first names set, which I think would be appropriate primarily for Hispanic players in North American leagues during the 1870-1970 era.

INCORPORATING THE NAMES INTO THE GAME:

1. This nameset does NOT have a nameset number. Instead, that field is marked by an asterisk (*). Go into the file and do a search-and-replace operation, replacing the asterisk with the number that you choose for the Historical Hispanic nameset.
2. Make back-up copies of the first_names files located in the OOTP database folder and move those back-ups to a separate location.
3. In the Historical Hispanic first names file, select "all" and copy and paste the names into the OOTP names.txt file (either paste over the "1" names or add the Historical Hispanic names).
4. Make a back-up copy of your modified first_names file and place it in a separate location (OOTP will overwrite your database files when it updates, so you'll want to save your work somewhere other than the OOTP database folder).
5. If you want to add the Historical Hispanic nameset as a separate ethnicity, then, in the world_default.xml file, add the following to the list of ethnicities:

   <ETHNICITY id="*"  name="Historical Hispanic" african="xxx" asian="0" east_indian="0" caucasian="xxx"  hispanic="xxx" />

   In place of the "xxx" insert a number that reflects how you want to use the set (if you're using the names in a Negro League setting, for instance, you'd want a high number for "african"). Replace the asterisk with the ID number that you've assigned to this nameset. Since you'll be using these names with the OOTP Hispanic surnames, you'll want both of those sets to have the same ID number.
6. If you've assigned a number other than "1" to your Historical Hispanic names, then, in the world_default.xml file, change the ETID numbers for the nations that will be using this nameset from "1" to the number you've assigned to this nameset. Those ETID numbers can be found in the NATION and ETHN PCT lines of each nation's entry.
7. Make a back-up copy of your modified world_default.xml file and place it in a separate location.

Historical Hispanic first names.txt

[Bottom Of The Sixth]

Thanks a million Joe!


Greatly appreciate all the time and effort you put in to help make this game series so much more enjoyable, so we can play it "Our Way".

[Germaniac]

Great job, thanks a lot