Ancient Names

A name list that adds names from/inspired by Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome for Sims, cats, dogs, horses, foxes, Trendi, and Plopsy. Thanks to Ricky's Mom for the request!

Details below, or feel free to skip to the bottom if you don't care.

Local Names

This is the main list of names, and will show up in CAS and for most randomly generated NPCs.

Roman names:

Romans were the first (I think) to have a distinct name format, instead of just John, son of James, or Jack the Butcher, or Jeremy with the mark on his nose (not joking, that's how a lot of people were named). Essentially, they were given a name, and the rest just happened, until the Romans came and probably decided that bureaucracy meant names that could identify you to the person in Rome from your province in whatever the latest conquered territory was, or something like that, and Claudius from over there wouldn't work. Who did the conquering, and who owes taxes? (I'm guessing, but it sounds reasonable.)

Roman names during the Roman Republic (other periods had different naming traditions, but I'm focusing on the Republic, not the Kingdom or the Empire) had up to three parts:

• 1 - praenomen - personal name. Little variation for men, and at times less for women, who usually used the feminine version of their father's nomen, with all daughters having the same praenomen and distinguished by a cognomen at times (Livia Maior and Livia Minor, Cluadia Primula and Claudia Secundina, etc.), although feminine forms of praenomenia were used and are included in the list too. Many would have often been abbreviated (L. for Lucius) in writing. Praemonenia were used much less later in history, but they were used during the Republic.
• 2 - nomen - surname, family name, identifies them as part of a gens (family, descended from one ancestor and often named after them). Many were patronymic: Marcius, meaning son of Marcus, although they could be named after a place or something else of significance. Often the only name used by women, but in feminine form.
• 3 - cognomen - at times a name to distinguish themselves from other relatives with the same name (praenomen + Major vs Minor, Primula vs Secundina), at times a personal nickname, at times another form of hereditary surname such as to distinguih between branches of a family, at times a combination (personal nickname bestowed on someone which then gets inherited and creates a new branch). At times didn't exist. A person may have multiple cognomina. The higher a family is in society, the more likely they are to have a cognomen, I think, and were more likely to use them outside family. Freedmen and freedwomen may have (from what I can tell) kept their original name as a cognomen and adopted/been given praenomen and nomen from their former master. I used some cognomen in double last names, when they're listed as distinct branches of the family. I didn't use them alone, because the game has no place for them.
• *4 - agnomen - existed later as an official nickname, but not during the Republic, so not relevant to the list so I didn't pay it a lot of attention. Fulfilled the role of personal cognomen after cognomenia became inherited, but seem to have eventually been inherited at times too.

Names had feminine and masculine versions. I've included both for personal names where I can find them/figure them out. For last names, they're in masculine form (where I can tell) because those are the ones listed in records and women generally were known by the feminine version of their father's nomen only, with no other name unless there were multiple daughters, which would mean they'd get a cognomen like Major and Minor, or Prima and Secunda (unless born outside of marriage, in which case they might be given their mother's name).

Women didn't change their names when they married, and often they had their praenomenia and nomenia reversed, making it difficult to tell which was which from historical records.

Adoptions made things even more complicated, and I'm not even looking at that. That's a social issue that you'll have to deal with in your save, or not deal with, as you choose. Names could get LONG, for various reasons, but adoption could increase that by a lot.

I'm also not deliberately dealing with suffixes as terms of endearment. Women's names seem especially prone to adding on to the end, since they were often all named the same thing in one family.

Or tribes. Nope. Not going there. First and Last because that's what the game supports.

First names I'm using are preanomen for male names, and for female names, the feminine form of nomenia plus some recorded female names.

Last names I'm including are nomenia, in masculine form where I can tell the difference, and some nomen + cognomen when they're used as branches of a family (and have no more than 14 characters combined).

There are many names in both lists. That just is how it is, since there's little distinction between them and a lot of family names came from an ancestor's praenomen.

Some names were more common among patricians and others were more common among plebians. Some names were used by only one or two patrician families but were used commonly among plebians. Some were rare while others were incredibly common. At times, three names might account for half the praenomenia in Rome. The most common names are included in the list twice to weight very slightly in their favour.

There's no way to replicate Roman naming in game, so first names are (hopefully) what the person would have been called among family and last name is their family's name. I did not include any double first names, since they would be split into first and third name, which the game can't do.

Greek names:

First names are names are from all of Ancient Greece, because I can't find more a list with more than a dozen or so names from Hellenic Greece (around the time period I was aiming for).

Last names are male first names that already end in -ides or with -ides added, as long as they're no more than 14 characters. This means son/daughter of Name, or a patronymic name. (Abantes to Abantesides)

They may also have used 'of Place, Kinship, or Group' but I only included patronymics. If they were illegitimate or their father wasn't a citizen, they may have used son/daughter of Mother, but again, that's not something I included.

Women had names, but were typically called either daughter/wife of Father/Husband, or both (daughter of Father, son of Husband). That's a social issue you'll have to choose how to deal with yourself. It's mentioned as something I can't replicate even if I wanted to.

Egyptian names:

The hardest main list, because most of the names I could find for the time were Greek because Greek was in charge of the area.

I included those, and also names from ancient Egypt in general, so that I could have more than a few dozen names. I doubt that every random Egyptian named their children Greek names, but the ones that were recorded were the ones who were written about.

Last names didn't exist. What I've done is made patronymics and matronymics, using the most recent versions I see here https://www.vikinganswerlady.com/Stars/Ancient_Egyptian_Names.htm, which I hope are accurate to the book they're from: să Father (son of) and ar-f Mother (born of), using names that are in the Egyptian portion of the list, as long as they don't go over 14 characters.

Non-Local Names

Used for the Indian, Islander, Japanese, Latin, Moroccan, Native American, and Southeast Asian name lists, for random NPCs.

Names include some of the more common Roman names and some that were said to be non-Roman, some rarer/foreign Greek names, and Egyptian names and Etruscan and Oscan names. I hope.

The actual hardest.

Animals

Cats and Dogs have a small variety of names

Foxes have mostly the cat names, because it looks like ancient civilizations considered cats and weasels to fulfill the same purpose (catching vermin), and generally had one or the other or considered them to be essentially the same thing. There are a few words added that are essentially 'fox.' Last names will always be Vulpes, the Latin for fox, when they have one.

Horses have the biggest variety. I found few examples for Roman horses, but I found the types of names they used, which included gods and places. I found only examples for Greek names, but I found more mythological names to use (for example, centaur names). For Egyptian, I found few examples, but they used phrases, similar to modern racehorses. Unfortunately, the examples I found are almost all over the 14 character limit. What I did for horses was use the examples that aren't over the character limit, add Roman gods and goddesses, and then go over my horse name list from my modern name list (where I both included and created phrase-type names that fit the character limit) and removed anything that seemed too modern or that was a human name.

Trendi and Plopsy

Real names of (probably) real people, from wikipedia, divided between the two lists. Plopsy has more names, because I figured that would be more likely to be used in a save set in ancient times, but they both have plenty to work with.

Untouched

Familiars, Servos, Skeletons, and Star Wars will have the default name lists from the game. I would use the names from my modern name list, but a lot of them might be too modern, and I can't see a situation where an ancient Roman citizen is going to travel to Batuu.

Notes

It's pretty weighted towards paternal last names except for Egyptian. I was working with what I had. Roman female names were largely just their last names in feminine form, and Greek women were probably not allowed their own last names (unless maybe they were in Sparta).

I make no guarantees for historical accuracy. History is writen by who's left standing who can read and write, and is often altered after the fact. I suspect a lot of names have Roman influence that didn't exist at the time. And then it went through multiple people until it got to me.

There's absolutely no way to match first names and last names appropriately by random. NPCs WILL get Egyptian first names and Roman last names or Green first names and Egyptian last names, etc. It is how it is. Maybe they have mixed heritage, or adopted a name for the local culture.

This will conflict with any other name list--ones that add or alter sim names. It doesn't conflict with mods that affect object animals only (I have another mod for that), and it doesn't conflict with Kuttoe's Townie Demographics or Home Regions, but if you use Townie Demographics, Kuttoe adds extra name lists, so you won't only have names from this mod.

Note that if a sim is generated with a non-local name, when they have a baby, the baby will use the main name list. They've integrated into the local culture enough to name their baby something that won't make them stand out.