SCOTTISH Character Names

**deRougemont** · February 18, 2007, 02:05 PM

Faction: Sicily
Status: Complete (but needs additional names)
Number of Names: ~180
Authors: FINNEYS13

To view the custom names list developed for Scotland, click on "show" below:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Suggestions for improvement are welcome; post below...

**finneys13** · February 18, 2007, 04:11 PM

Scotland would be a tough one for this time period, would need a mixture of Gaelic, Lowland English (Inglis) and Norman names, plus maybe some Norse names.

**deRougemont** · February 18, 2007, 05:40 PM

[...the following is PM discussion that deserves to be posted in this thread...]

Originally Posted by finneys13

Would you want the Gaelic names in proper Gaelic, or Anglicised, like Mael-Colum or Malcolm?

As to Gaelic v. Anglo, I'd go Gaelic. We'll assume that 1701 will never happen.

Besides, I assume that would be the historically correct way of approaching them.

Originally Posted by finneys13

Even in the time period a lot of Scots would have had English as a mother tongue, and I would imagine they would Anglicised their Gaelic neighbours names, all quite confusing I know, even the royal court in 1080 would have spoken Gaelic, English and French, and towards the end of the period, (Scottish) English would be the language of the court.

Just thinking about it, you can't have a person with a Norse first name, Gaelic surname and English byname, is there anyway to make the names 'linked' with each other?

Nope, we can't link the names. The game limits what we can do with the names lists, and this is a case in point. The program chooses names randomly from everything in the lists. The only divisions are male names, female names and bynames. That's it. So maybe we should focus on the typical names and spellings of a particular part of the 1080-1530 time period. Perhaps around 1350 and beyond? I assume we would see more Anglo spellings of Gaelic names and perhaps also English names from then on?

**finneys13** · February 18, 2007, 06:00 PM

I still think it would be a shame giving Anglicised Gaelic names, or leaving them out all together, Gaelic was the language of a large part of the country for the whole time frame, but is incompatible with English names, like at the Irish name list in the Saxon thread, that's what Gaelic looks like.

The Northern part of Scotland would have spoke Gaelic, the Southern part English and the upper nobility would have spoken both and French. By the end of the game, royalty would have spoken Scottish English and have English or Anglicised names, but still would be very unfair to forget about at least one half of the country and earlier in the game when Gaelic was even more widespread.

I know it's going in circles, I hope people can follow. What do other people think?

**Adahn** · February 19, 2007, 01:35 PM

I think Gaelic

I mean of Scotland is conquered by England than we can assume that they were properly 'anglicised' like in RL, but if it proves triumphant than it could keep its roots. Besides its not fun to have two factions with the same kind of names.

**finneys13** · February 19, 2007, 02:30 PM

Most of the Lowlands spoke the same English, albeit with an accent, as their Southern neighbours in 1080 and all the way through the game, growing in number actually as Gaelic decreased.

**finneys13** · February 28, 2007, 06:09 PM

No one else showing interest?

I could start but the different languages may make it impossible to make it accurate.

**deRougemont** · February 28, 2007, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by finneys13

No one else showing interest?

I could start but the different languages may make it impossible to make it accurate.

Hi finneys!

Yeah, its surprising no one has chosen the Scots. However, it may be because it is such a difficult faction to take on. I wouldn't worry much about the accuracy aspect. None of these lists are perfect. The main concern should be just doing the best we can -- because whatever you come up with, it will be better than CA's list, they did such a poor job.

Besides, we can always post your Scots name list in the Mod Workshop forum and ask for comments and criticism. That could help us polish it up a bit. I'm sure there will be people willing to do that.

All you need to do finneys, as far as the techinical aspect is concerned, is create the "descr_names.txt" file for me with your names. I'll make the other two for you (I have a method for doing it quickly ;-).

I know you are busy with you mod, but would definitely appreciate you help with this one...

**Hex Khan** · February 28, 2007, 06:40 PM

if you guys want a hand with the scottish names I could help, being scottish and a scottish reenactor of mainly 1300s + though by my time of preferment a majority was in english

**finneys13** · February 28, 2007, 06:49 PM

The main problem is to use Gaelic or English/French names. What do you think, we can't use both?

**Hex Khan** · February 28, 2007, 06:54 PM

depends on how you want to look at scotland, theres that ever so hotly debated divide that no good has ever come of between the highlands and lowlands which occured in 1411 following the battle of harlaw, the islanders and highlanders were still incredibly gaelic who used the older gaelic names. while the lowlanders used english names.

I'd say you should impliment both, to represent both cultures of the contiental lowlands and the ancient gaels

**finneys13** · February 28, 2007, 07:02 PM

But you can't, you can't have a Henry mac Donnchada, an English first name and Gaelic surname or vice versa, it doesn't work.

**Hex Khan** · February 28, 2007, 07:04 PM

true but you can translate that to henry macdonald

**finneys13** · February 28, 2007, 07:12 PM

But that won't be right either, sounds like what they did in the vanilla.

Would be the very last resort, would rather just Gaelic names to that, was still the main language in 1080.

**deRougemont** · February 28, 2007, 08:55 PM

@ finneys and Khan

Well since I know very little about the cultural milieu of medieval Scotland, this is entirely up to you guys. To come up with a consistent names list, we may have to chose a particular part of the medieval period and also a particular region. For example, perhaps choose to focus on names in one of these categories:

1.) 1050-1300 highlands
2.) 1300-1550 highlands
3.) 1050-1300 lowlands
4.) 1300-1550 lowlands

If we use only gaelic from the early period highlands, we can assume (in the manner of a choose-your-own-adventure), that the player is going to dominate england using the Scots, and therefore not only would gaelic be entirely prominant in the game in Scotland, but also in England (by way of conquest). After all, this could have happened. It just didn't.

This problem with names is not unique, we have had the same dilemma with other factions, especially the Hungarians and Protuguese. In those two cases, we chose to focus on names/spelling practices of the latter half of the medieval period. We did this essentially because the names in that period are more recognizable to today's names, and therefore the game will probably be more enjoyable to players using those later names.

Personally, I would like to see the Scottish names be gaelic, since that was their original, native language. This would however deviate from many of the other names lists.

These are just thoughts, and not meant to decide anything. I would rather folks like you two decide since you are more knowledgable about these issues...

**Máel Coluim** · March 04, 2007, 08:50 PM

http://www.medievalscotland.org/scotnames/

**Basileios II** · March 10, 2007, 06:37 AM

*Cough cough*

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t=73078&page=8

Post No. 155...

**deRougemont** · March 10, 2007, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Basileios II

*Cough cough*

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t=73078&page=8

Post No. 155...

This is a perfect example of why I moved the discussion from a single thread to a forum. I've looked through that thread a 100 hundred times and still managed to overlook that post...

So, now what I need are a couple of people to critique the list which we evidently have had all along...

Doesn't mean we're done of course! Thanks Basileios. Would you care to explain your method in making this list for us?

Also, I'm assuming the Gaelic for "of" is not "of". What is it then?

**finneys13** · March 10, 2007, 01:53 PM

No offence, but I don't really like that namelist. He has gone down the road of Gaelic and English names, so you are going to get Máel Domnaich Gordon, which just looks wrong. Máel Domnaich of Galloway is even stupider, as Galloway was a Gaelic area, and that is the English name for it.

Also there are some mistakes, like the Máel X names should have a space between Máel and the X, which he doesn't.

After the weekend I will make a list, I still don't know what to use, Gaelic or English with Anglicised Gaelic names or a combination of Gaelic and English names. Maybe just Gaelic names as they would look different to the English faction, nothing can be 100% correct, but I think a combination of Gaelic and English names is the worst option, ie. Máel Domnaich Gordon.

In 1080, most of the population would have had Gaelic names, but of course by the 1500s it had gone the other way.

And in Gaelic, they didn't really use bynames as such, just the usual <first name> mac <father's name>, maybe the grandfathers too. But they would count as surnames. Family was more important than place, as before the Normans in Ireland, most of the population were semi-nomadic.

Shame there is no way to link names, like having the son's surname being the father's first name.

**deRougemont** · March 10, 2007, 02:13 PM

I agree. We can't mix these names like that. I vote Gaelic. Let's just assume, since we really have to make a choice one way or the other, that Gaelic remains dominant in Scotland. We already have an english names list, lets not make another one. Go Scotland!

Oh, thats ok abot place names too. This wasn't a common practice for the Byzantines either, and I am thinking of not making any locative bynames for them either. So, no problem there.

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