The Stainless Steel Names Overhaul Project (SSNOP)

[Fair Prince]

Features

SSNOP aims to improve the names of the in-game characters by using native and historically accurate fonts where possible, resulting in a more immersive and enjoyable gameplay. The submod is compatible with vanilla Stainless Steel 6.4.

Preview

Notes: - Papal States characters have Latin first names but Italian surnames - Cuman, Mongol and Timurid names are written in Anglicized forms - Georgian and Swedish names aren't utilised in the mod as their factions are not included in Stainless Steel yet

Licensing

This work can be used for any Stainless Steel submod without permission, but please credit me and the contributors for our efforts if you do that. Modders who work on mods outside SS must request permission from me first before using any of the files.

Version history

Latest release: v1.1 (2012-Feb-25) - See the attachment below! Previous releases: v1.0 Final (2011-May-01) v1.0 Beta 3 (2011-Jan-17) v1.0 Beta 2 (2010-Sep-27) v1.0 Beta 1 (2010-Sep-26)

Contributors

Please rep these nice fellows if you appreciate their efforts! Arabic names: HbHadast and MehemtAli_Pasha Danish: Meneth and Christian Goth English: Graeme and Rozanov French: princeps.omnis and loet66 Georgian: Tadzreuli German: Bernem and Fred Putz Greek: Manuel I Komnenos and koultouras Hungarian: Fair Prince Italian: Spartan 666, Principe Alessandro and Grymloq Italian / Sicilian: Freelancer Tex and davsim Latin: Fair Prince Lithuanian: Shadow_LT, Medkirtys and Darknemo2000 Mongolian: Ozzmozis and Tan Zhi Han Norwegian: Meneth Persian: R-teen Polish: szelbisz Portuguese: Solrac, Jamesphillip and Black Knight Russian: CarbEast Scottish Gaelic: Fair Prince and Copperknickers II Serbian: Drachos and Mihajlo Spanish / Aragonese: brennas Spanish / Castilian: Bucefalo Swedish: preachercheeze Turkish: Ozzmozis and nuel92 Turkish / Chagatai: Babur Turkish / Kipchak: Ozzmozis and princeps.omnis Additional support: Geoffrey of Villehardouin Project leader: Fair Prince Further credit goes to: - gracul and the SS Developer Team for making Stainless Steel 6.4 - Seether, the creator of Alberi di Famiglia Regal, for the original SS name lists - finneys13, the creator of Characters Names Project, for numerous improved name lists

[Fair Prince]

EDIT: all files have been removed from this post.

[Caesar Clivus]

Just so you know, using some Hungarian letters can cause CTDs. You might want to make certain that other alphabets dont do the same

[Fair Prince]

Just so you know, using some Hungarian letters can cause CTDs. You might want to make certain that other alphabets dont do the same

Good to know. I was aware some letters can't be put in the game cause they won't appear correctly, but CTDs from this are news for me. I'll keep that in mind.

Btw, I uploaded the rest of in-game names in the second post, so there are now 15 files waiting to be completed (some others are already done).
Everyone's help is appreciated!

[Ozzmosis]

Cool.
The Cumans (or Kipchaks) were a Turkic tribe, and would have had Turkic names, like the Turkish ones, but without the Arabic or Persian names. Their Language is called Kipchak Turkish. For Timurids, they should also have at least some Turkic names, as Timur is a Turkic name and the ruling classes would have been of Turkic/Mongol descent. The Timurids only spoke Persian as their lingua franca and by that logic, the Ottomans should be Persian, as their ruling classes spoke Persian. The Timurids were not persians, although many subjects within the empire would have been.

So Cumans:
Turkic names, including words like Gök, Han, and some others, and for women things like Gül. unfortunately I am no scholar on thıs matter though I think that some other mods have proper ancient Turkic names you could use for the Cumans and Timurids. The Selcuks are fine, i guess, as they had a lot of persian Influence and as well as Arab/Muslim influence, so they would have had many Persian/Arab names as well as traditional Turkic names.

Only info here, no real names, I'm afraid!

[Fair Prince]

Thanks, so the Cumans spoke Kipchak Turkish.
That's a useful info to everyone I reckon (it's always good to learn), and worths a big rep point for you!

Yes, you didn't write real names, but I'd suggest you giving those Cuman names a try, if you have some time and patience for that.

[Grouchio]

I hate it when my heir is named Thomas, Anselm, or Andreas! Those are names fit for priests!

[Fair Prince]

I hate it when my heir is named Thomas, Anselm, or Andreas! Those are names fit for priests!

Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it.
The game chooses names for generals and agents (priests included) from the same list, and I don't think it's possible to separate them.

[Grouchio]

can't we save before end turn, and rerun it in hopes of a better name?

[HbHadast]

Hello Fair Prince,

This is a great idea.

Arabic is my native language, I've already done some text modding in my RMP mod for DLV. I am ready to help with this project.

Here is what I did in my mini-mod:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

TEXT:
- Modding names for all Almohad characters (adding/removing/replacing) in both Imperial and Historical Campaign (now: 200+ names, 150+ surnames, 30+ female names)
- Family tree names changed to fit the historical family tree of the Almohads, family name changed to: Ibn Abd Al-Mu'min
- Name of the Faction, adjectives, titles etc. corrected
- New campaign description

The problem is that some names are... fantasy, they don't even exist so can I remove them from the excel table? Can I add real names? Or you're just planning to edit the existing ones?

[princeps.omnis]

I'm just wondering what sort of distinction you want between surnames and bynames? I'm working on the French list, and normally bynames would be location-specific names. What confuses me is the inclusion of names like "le Breton" (the Breton) or "la Hire" (the Wrath of God) in the byname section.

So, if I want to add "l'Affable" (the Affable) or "d'Outre-mer" (from Overseas), should I put these in the byname section? Should I even add things like that?

[Fair Prince]

@HbHadast
It's great you speak Arabic and it's even better you're willing to help!
The current set of names are from the Alberi di Famiglia Regal mod (now also used in the latest RR/RC), but I don't who was the person who first compiled the list.
Since you know the language, you surely know better which names are real and which ones are fantasy, so feel free to add or remove any names you want.
Just make sure to use transliterated letters, as non-Arabic players would find it impossible to understand words in standard Arabic characters.
Thanks for the help!

@princeps.omnis
I'm on the opinion that epithet-like names (e.g. the Affable, the Great) should be avoided. Normal surnames should go to the 'surnames' section while those that refer to a place (e.g. from Overseas, of Anjou) should be in the 'bynames' section.
The sorting doesn't make much difference anyway, what matters is to have the correct names in the list.

[Fair Prince]

can't we save before end turn, and rerun it in hopes of a better name?

Actually we can, but there are some limitations.
As I found out, the game compiles a linear list of first names for itself at the launching of each campaign, and uses it until the end.

Every newly spawned character in the faction will get his first name from this list when they first appear. These include: new influentials, candidates for adoption, new agents (priests, spies, assassins), random captains/admirals (armies without bodyguarded generals), and even local rebels, who appear in one of your regions. The trick lies in influencing the number of these newly spawned characters by recruiting, or by moving an army or a single unit in order to get a new named captain.

Here's an example: the game has already decided the next 4 new characters' name will be Andrew, Henry, John, Stephen. If you train a new spy, his name will be Andrew. If you recruit a merchant too, he's gonna be called Henry. If a priest is also recruited at the same time, he may get the name of Henry, while the merchant could be called John.
I'm not sure in this latter concept though - I just wanted to illustrate that there's some prioritizing on who gets the next name of the pre-compiled list, but I'm yet to find out how it works.

As for the surnames, they're randomly assigned I think.

[Seether]

I see you took my advice Fair Prince

+rep

[HbHadast]

I finished my work on the Arabic names database. It is brand-new, more than 400 names/surnames now and they all sound Arab (I took them from real Arab generals, scholars etc... from the medieval times).

I hope that you will enjoy the new list.

http://www.filefront.com/16884315/Ar...26Fatimids.xls

Now, I want to make a historically accurate family-tree (at least for the names/ages of the generals) but I would like to know which year the game is supposed to start?

1100? --> Al-Murabitun = Almoravids
1180? --> Al-Muwahhidun = Almohads

Personally, I prefer the Almohads to be in the game since Almoravids will soon fall at 1147 while the Almohads will survive until 1269.

[Fair Prince]

I see you took my advice Fair Prince

+rep

That's right, and I'm thankful for that.
I'll give you another rep once I'm able to do.

[Fair Prince]

@HbHadast

I've checked it out, but I see you didn't fill the right column completely, so I ask you to please do that - that's necessary to be able to assemble the final text file. You did a good job nonetheless, and a rep point is already well deserved for your efforts.

As for the family tree, this matter belongs rather to the SSHCP thread, so in the future we should discuss it there.
But to make a short answer: the mod is gonna start in 1130, thus the Almoravids will be put into it. Actually, it would be an immense help for me if you could provide an accurate family tree of theirs, as I simply couldn't find any substantial info on them in English language.

[princeps.omnis]

So I'm still working through the Crusader names. The only thing is that I know French, and not all the crusaders were French.

So, for you German speakers, are these by-names correct?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

von_Bayern
von_Brabant
von_Franken
von_Frankfurt
von_Hamburg
von_Jülich
von_Köln
von_Lothringen
von_Löwen
von_Österreich
von_Sachsen
von_Schwaben
von_Segeberg
von_Tirol
von_Thüringen

And for you Italian speakers, I'm unsure when you're supposed to use "da" (da Pisa) and when to use di (di Savoia). So you could explain that, or you could just check the list:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

da_Bologna
da_Firenze
da_Genova
da_Milano
da_Pisa
da_Roma
da_Venezia
di_Monferrato
di_Savoia
di_Sicilia
di_Tirolo
di_Toscana

Thanks

[Fair Prince]

Hey princeps, thanks for your contribution, I'll note it in the first post.

I think it isn't necessary to put German and Italian names into the Crusader list - doing so would result in spawning of characters with mixed (half French, half German/Italian) names, such as Francois von Schwaben or Thierry di Toscana.
So, to avoid this I'd recommend you to put French equivalents only into the list.

[princeps.omnis]

I had an inkling you'd say that.

Now, I agree with you for the most part. I mean, yes, it would be silly to have Guillaume von Lothringen. It's just too bad that it takes away the international flavor of the Crusader states. I know they were mostly French, but still.

I pretty much redid the entire lists.

So for the Frenchified one, go here:
http://www.filefront.com/16916049/Fr...6Crusaders.xls

And, I don't know, if you get curious or something, you can get the authentic ones here:
http://www.filefront.com/16916075/Fr...%20Foreign.xls