Character names

[Woreczko]

Hi all!
While browsing SVN I noticed, that in the process of upgrading from 2.1 to 2.2, you left out numerous character names for non-anglosaxon cultures. What was the reason for this? Is it safe and ok to copy for myself the script from 2.1 "team_humans.ufo" and paste into my 2.2 installation?

[Mattn]

no, that would be not safe - because some team ids changed, too

but of course you can add new names for yourself - and also send patches if the names are reasonable

[eleazar]

no, that would be not safe - because some team ids changed, too

but of course you can add new names for yourself - and also send patches if the names are reasonable

How many names can it handle?  The current 32 per gender isn't really enough to avoid frequent repetition.

Would it be useful if we compiled a list of a few hundred names for each gender and each super-nation?  That way the names of the recruits could match the relative support of the various super-nations.

[Mattn]

it can handle as much names as your ram can hold - the names are a linked list - feel free to add as many as you wish

[eleazar]

Ok, heres about 1000 North American surnames, with about 250 first names for each gender.

I tried to avoid alternate spellings of the same name, and first names of ambiguous gender to help keep thing clear for the player.

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[BTAxis]

Maybe it's a good idea to expand on the names system a little. Right now we have male and female names as well as surnames for various classes, but I think it'd be a good idea to divide the names by nation instead. The names eleazar provided would be good for United America.

[eleazar]

... but I think it'd be a good idea to divide the names by nation instead. The names eleazar provided would be good for United America.

Yeah exactly what i was thinking.

Unless we want to make the naming system pretty complicated, we'll have to accept a certain amount of mixing  I.e. in Oceania if we just make a list we could have a Swahili first name with an Indian surname, which isn't common now, but could come to pass with only a generation of mixing.

Also each head model might also be assigned to certain of the super-nations with varying chances of occurrence.  I.E. red-heads might be common in europe, less common in North American and Oceania, and pretty rare in the other 5.

[TroubleMaker]

My humble donation from Russia: 60 male and 60 female names, and 152x2 (M & F forms) surnames.
If opendoc (OOO 2.3.1) attached is inconvenient to import/use, I can export it into plain text.

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[eleazar]

My humble donation from Russia: 60 male and 60 female names, and 152x2 (M & F forms) surnames.
If opendoc (OOO 2.3.1) attached is inconvenient to import/use, I can export it into plain text.

Cool.

Some of the names have apostrophes  > ' < after them.  Is that a typo or significant?

[TroubleMaker]

Some of the names have apostrophes

It is significant. Such apostrophes stands for "soft sign" - unpronounceable symbol for softening the last "meaning" letter.

I'm not a linguist, but I'll try to explain.

Let us look to two Chinese names: Lao and Lyao.
First "L" is pronounced "hard" as in "help", and second one - as in "million" - "miljən"

Similar thing we can see in some Russian words, including proper names. For example, two very similar names: `Igor' and Eg`or. The latter pronounced "hard", as it written. But first ends with "softened r", like "Igoree", but without ending "ee".

Do not try to read transliterated Russian names according the rules of English alphabet, they could be read much correctly according Germanic, "harder" rules: not "aigour" and "eyegour", but "igor' " and "yegor". Exception is for some specific sounds like "sh" as in "shoes" and "ch" as in "chapter".

The "y" in the middle of the word replaces sound of "ы", closed and dull variation of "ee". Nearest example is "Chernobyl' " or "i" in "thick". At the end of the word the same character replaces a digraphic suffix of "ый" - "yj", like in surname of Roman Polansky.

[Zorlen]

I've mostly seen Russian names and surnames with omitted apostophes when written in English. Though that could be handy if names are to be transliterated to other languages.

[TroubleMaker]

I've mostly seen Russian names and surnames with omitted apostophes

Agree, but in some cases the "soft sign" is the necessity. Let's take a "Talakan' " surname. Without ending "soft sign" it must be pronounced very close to "Tarakan" ("a roach"), but with the "soft sign" it sounds different - ending "n" will be pronounced exactly as in "new", not as in "next".

Contrary English and other Germanic languages, Russian heavily uses suffixes and endings to designate gender, quantity and time. And we have no need in articles to say what we want to say.

But some common fossils from ancient Indic language are exists. For example, we have present time forms for "to be" verb, and it is possible to say exactly "I am a programmer" - "Ya est' programmist", but during last 1000 years these forms are gone from the language. Often they used to depict "foreign accent": "I'm the PHALANX officer" - "Ya est' oficer FALANKS", but correct form is "Ya - oficer FALANKS"

(note on apostrophe in "est' " - without it the word changes meaning to "(someone) eats (something)")

[Zorlen]

Speaking of suffixes and endings, I wonder if names are going to be translated to each language? In this case either rules for name declension should be applied, or all sentences should be built in such a manner that all names are used in nominative case. E.g. "Brain augmentation is implanted to Vasiliy Pupkin" would rather be translated "Vasiliy Pupkin proshel vzhivleniye mozgovykh implantantov" rather then "Mozgovye implantanty vzhivleny Vasiliyu Pupkinu". Otherwise either grammaic rules should be coded, or we'll end up with grammatically incorrect sentences like "Mozgovye implantanty vzhivleny Vasiliy Pupkin".

[TroubleMaker]

To be short.

Differences in languages' organization makes some difficulties for translators. But, as I explained in PM to Zorlen, there always exists a possibility to re-make a phrase into gender-neutral form. For example, in English the phrases like:

Brain segmentation fault is implanted to (head owner's name)
The (name) craft's pilots are low on vodka, returning to base for new bottles
The building of the comfortable WC for aliens is finished on (base name) base.

will sound good enough regardless or soldier's, craft's and base's names.

But in Russian in equal phrases the names must undergo the declension because of change of grammar case - from nominative to dative and so on. But simple exchange the parts of sentence and usage of punctuation can make magic:

(soldier's name and surname): self-destruction A-bomb implanting finished.
(сraft's name): vodka tanks are almost empty, returning to base
(base's name): comfortable alien-accommodated WC has been built.

[eleazar]

ignoring the detour into the problems of translation, we still can use lists of names suitable for:

* South America + the Caribbean
* Europe
* The Islamic Mid East
* Africa (minus south africa and the muslim parts)
* South Africa + India + Oceania
* The Orient