Ice Age names

[Smiling Spectre]

I have a question that bothers me almost from the first start of the game: most (or maybe even all) characters in Ice Age zone have Russian-like names. But it is not true full Russian ones. Mostly it's the 'kid names' that never used oficially. So I am curious, what was source of that names? And was it intentionally Russian-like?

[x4000]

A lot of those names are actually Polish, but it really varies by the character.  A lot of these names we got from online naming sites of various sorts, or from census records from various time periods in various countries.  The names aren't done by time period, it's just by the character model in question; so some are Polish or Russian in the ice age to be sure, but there are also some African American names there, and so on.  And as the number of character models goes up in each time period, so too will the name variety per time period.

[Coppermantis]

Just by looking at the game files, it appears that it picks the name randomly from a bunch of files in folders such as GreekFemaleFirstNames, GreekMaleFirstNames, GreekLastNames, ChineseAncientLastNames, etc. I didn't know about the name being based on model, but looking back it makes sense. My russian-looking guy have names like Fabi Yurovitch while my African-Americans have names like Ja-Ron Massey and so on.

[x4000]

Yep, exactly.  I figured it would be nice to have an ethnically diverse nameset.

[Smiling Spectre]

Just by looking at the game files, it appears that it picks the name randomly from a bunch of files in folders such as GreekFemaleFirstNames

Wow! Here it is! Thank you!

Checking... oh. It's so diverse that I cannot simply "edit" it as I would want. I think, I will not touch most of it...

Ok, x4000, I am willing to clear this names somewhat. Removing too artificial cases as "Zhenechka" or "Aloyoshenka", plain mistakes as "Afonaseva" and fixing mistypes as "Bogdashha". Can you approve it?

[x4000]

Ok, x4000, I am willing to clear this names somewhat. Removing too artificial cases as "Zhenechka" or "Aloyoshenka", plain mistakes as "Afonaseva" and fixing mistypes as "Bogdashha". Can you approve it?

Absolutely, if you want to clear out the crud in there, we'd definitely be grateful and welcome a revised file to distribute.  Thanks for that!

[Smiling Spectre]

Well, I made it.

Notices:

- Female Names - there is lot of it, but some names is offensive like "Irka", some of it not names at all ("Gadina" is swear, like "pony"), and some are second names ("Ivanova"). Also there is several male names ("Grisha"). I removed all such cases.

- It gave me the idea. You have not very many second Russian names. And it can be doubled easily, as female form in Russian (and other slavic languages actually) is different from male one. So I renamed old "RussianLastNames.txt" into "RussianMaleLastNames.txt" (as it is - male names) and add "RussianFemaleLastNames.txt" with the same names, but in female form. If it cannot be used, well, rename RussianMaleLastNames.txt back.

- Male names. It's clear mostly, except "too sweet" names. "Andryushenka" is good for 3-years-old boy, not for hardy adventurer. But list is too short! So I went to couple of naming sites and added some valid Russian names from here.

- Second names (now second male names). Strange. There is mostly genuine Russian family names, except one exclusion: some names was shortened to it's archaic, "root" form. Like "Angel" instead "Angelov", "Dub" instead "Dubov", etc. I added correct endings.

Also I cleared "w/v" discrepancy, removed non-existed "j" and made some other minor clearing.

Zip with all 4 txt is in attachments.

[x4000]

Wow, that is awesome!  Thank you so much for doing that, we will integrate that into the game and that will be much better I am sure.  Holy cow on the insult ones, that's scary!

[Coppermantis]

Cool! My modding at this point is adding "MONOCULOUS!" to the monster names list.

Heh.

[@B0FH]

Cool! My modding at this point is adding "MONOCULOUS!" to the monster names list.

Heh.

No wonder the Demoman cannae-find his eye - wrong bloody universe! :p

[x4000]

For the next release:

* At long last, added in the cleaned-up and improved Russian first names and last names that no longer include things like tiny-kid endearments, regional slurs, etc (oops).
** Enormous thanks to Smiling Spectre for taking the time to first clean this up and save us from potentially large publicity gaffes with it, and then also for waiting two and a half months while we didn't get around to actually putting it into the game.

[BobTheJanitor]

My very first character was a bald guy named Deshawn Brazzle. I will never again get a character name as great as that. That's still the only time in the game that the permadeath has really caused me any disappointment. Every character since then I've thought of as expendable guy 1, 2, 3, etc. But I know tweaking on making permadeath important is still something that needs to be done. My suggestion: try to make every character nearly as cool as Deshawn Brazzle. (None can ever be quite that awesome, but it's something to aspire to) 

[x4000]

In terms of the permadeath, have you seen the new upgrade stones stuff?  That should help out in a major way on that front.

[keith.lamothe]

But Upgrade Stones cannot get you a name like that.

[x4000]

No -- definitely not.