Random name generator

[smw]

Not sure if this would be of interest to anyone but I have an excel file I use to randomly generate names, using a list of c53k first names and c155k surnames covering a wide range of possible names, if you would be interested in adding a Random name button I would be happy to provide the lists in a suitable format?

When I built the list I didn't intend for it to grow so large so I made no attempt to seperate out the names by any criteria including Gender so it is really a random list!

Compiled from all over the place, common name lists, old census information (some of the best content came from the US and UK census information from turn of the 20th Century). No duplicates although there may be the occasional duff entry or multiple spellings of certain names as I have not attempted to proof read it.

Currently I use a set of look ups to generate full names with random chance of a double barrelled surname.

[slaad11]

This sounds cool. Mark and I were talking about adding gender to the results of the Get NPC button and he's eventually considering checkboxes letting you control how much the Get NPC displays (personality/gender/race/class), in case you want "pensive female Bulgarian carpenter", or you just want something like "carpenter". Adding a Get Name button would be nice, and it could add even more optional depth to the Get NPC, like "Alice Roark, the pensive female Bulgarian carpenter".

Of course, for that to work with gender in the NPC equation, we would need to separate the first names by gender and have Get Female Name and Get Male Name buttons - either that, or we don't add gender and let the first name show it.

There are two problems with the second option, though...
- If there are more female than male names in the list, you'll end up with female-dominated stories - this may not be a problem in some cases, but in many genres, it would be unrealistic.
- Some of the names might be too ambiguous or bizarre to determine gender (the names of my own great grandparents, for example, are Thorval and Dagmire - no joke)

[smw]

At a guess I would say there is more male first names than Female but I'm not basing that on any actual facts! rather the random results are male about 60% of the time in my experience.

There is a sizable amount within the list that could be used for either and there are probably a few that are so left-field they could almost be cause for "your names what?" sort of moments :-)

It never really bothered me as I like the random factor of making the NPC/PC around the name along with a bunch of other random traits etc besides I have no problem re-rolling a name if it is really not going to fit a particular setting/genre.

Besides by the time my excel file had got so large there was no way I was either going to rebuild the lists from scratch or go through and identify the gender for each entry (I wish I had enough spare time!)
(Aside from names I have built in awhole complicated mess of traits, ages, wealth etc so that I could generate a whole setting and the key people there at once, although i keep toying with ideas to expand it further depending on how my mood takes me.)

Happy to provide the raw data if its a useful starting point otherwise if I ever find the time to try and split the names for example by gender I'll drop that over!

One thought is that the census data I used did have the gender marked for each name so I may be able to use look ups to populate the split for a large chunk of names.

[mark]

The way it works right now is there is a 20% chance that the NPC is female.

What I could do is either one of these two things:

- If the NPC is not female then there is a 20% chance that a random name gets returned. Or...

- Drop the 20% for female and just implement a 20% chance for a random name.

And this would be one list that is applied globally across all genres.

[slaad11]

Personally, I think we should wait until we have name lists seperated by gender, then add the names to the Get NPC. I could work on name lists next week.

I also think we'd do well just to grab lists of names from 'most common name' searches. We wouldn't have any Thorvals or Dagmires, but there would still be more than enough for good randomization.

[smw]

Despite my protestations around a lack of time I have pulled together an update to my existing list which gives 10,944 female first names, 8,138 Male first names and 39,000 currently un-attributed first names. combined with c155k surnames that still gives a lot of randomness :-) Currently it is in Excel if that works I'm happy to contribute as a starting point?

[smw]

I've gone about as far as I can go with separating out a list of first names by Gender, I now have 10,804 Female names, 13,032 Male names and 37,665 unattributed names. Total 61,501 unique first names which should be enough for anyones needs!

(The small drop in Female names was to do with a lookup clash between the US census data and other lists of names from more modern sources so it may be some names have either switched Gender or can be used for either.)

Currently I have this in an Excel file but if desired I can put it in word or Text format instead, just let me know who wants it and how I can provide it?

Thanks

[TrollSlayer]

I've gone about as far as I can go with separating out a list of first names by Gender, I now have 10,804 Female names, 13,032 Male names and 37,665 unattributed names. Total 61,501 unique first names which should be enough for anyones needs!

(The small drop in Female names was to do with a lookup clash between the US census data and other lists of names from more modern sources so it may be some names have either switched Gender or can be used for either.)

Currently I have this in an Excel file but if desired I can put it in word or Text format instead, just let me know who wants it and how I can provide it?

Thanks

How long did it take you to find and categorize all these?

[smw]

Couple hours ;-)

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Couple hours