I sometimes use a name generator I wrote myself (for work) to generate names for custom townies and some playables, but babies are rare and special in my game (3 babies in 4 years playing!) so I give their names a lot of thought -- it's the nearest I'll ever get to naming a real baby. I may even have an imaginary conversation with the parents and ask them what they think. I've only had to think up 3 names for Sims babies so far; my sister has had to think up names for seven real babies.

I have a baby (who is about to grow up to a toddler) called Peni Jo, named (with their permission) after two of the most prolific posters on this forum. Her twin brother is called Peregrine, inspired by the bird names in the Hawkins family in Peni's Drama Acres, but also quite a distinguished boy's name in its own right. My third baby is Titus Curious in Strangetown, Pascal's alien child. Reading other people's stories, there seemed to be a trend to give him an unusual name beginning with "T".

I was wondering about that, but kept forgetting to ask.

@ihatemandatoryregister Loving the threads you've been creating!

At first, I went with the first name that popped up into my head but now I actually use a website, choose a nationality based on the parents and put in the two names of the parents and let the generator come up with a list. If I don't like any of the names, I just go for a new list of names. It's been working out so far.

@Duvelina: I can't believe you actually tell us that much about the way you select a name , but then omit giving us a link to the site you use . Would you please fix that? I would appreciate it greatly!

I just typed into google: 'baby names based on parents' names'. It's the first link. That's all there is to it, hahaha.

But, the link for people who don't want to use google:
http://www.bestlittlebaby.com/baby-name-generator.aspx

@Duvelina: Thanks a lot, dear.

Now I don't mind using google, but I would NEVER have guessed to type 'baby names based on parents' names' as a search parameter. So I would never have found that site, either. But now I have something to work with, thank you very much

Holds hand up shyly .... No, thrusts hand up proudly and waves. I have no need for one. Most of my sim families have developed naming traditions, some of which I've mentioned in previous threads. To take some recent examples:

Keril Stannis: She's one of my Blake's 7 sims, descended from sims based on characters in the BBC space opera. In her case, Jenna Stannis, the dishy space pirate. Sims born with a B7 surname are nearly always named after characters in the series. Keril was originally a space mercenary in a 3rd season episode.

Trevison Bungdungle, and his twin brothers Artegall and Calidore: these were all swiped from Spenser's Faerie Queene. Their mother is Rampallian Bungdungle, named after a term for a wanton wench in some Shakespeare play or other, and she has a twin sister called Radegund who was the Queen of the Amazons in aforementioned FQ. Radegund, however, married Travis Mellanby, another B7 sim, so her daughter is Ravella (a minor character in the very first episode).

Francolin Partridge: The original Partridge family all had game bird names, mostly derived from the scientific names (eg Perdicia, a feminised version of Perdix, Latin for partridge). However, Sandy Partridge (refers to the Sand Partridge, Ammoperdix heyi) married Falco Saturnius, though she kept her surname. Falco was the son of Butea (Latin for buzzard), and their son was Pandion (ditto for the Osprey), whose daughter was Falcona. Falcona's son Francolin keeps the F-name tradition going whilst harking back to her partridgey roots.

Seregon Sonomme: Seregon comes from Tolkien's Silmarillion. His mother is Narbeleth daughter of Narya, both names also from Tolkien. Narya's parents were Naomi and Nathen, and Naomi continued a tradition of giving girls names beginning with 'Na'. However, what with Narvi and Narwain also in this line, I've pretty much exhausted the usable Tolkien names beginning with 'Na' and branched out a bit. Seregon's father is Samuel, so I hunted through Robert Foster's Guide to Middle Earth until I found a suitable name beginning with S.

I think that example shows how my naming traditions switch tracks from time to time.

Gurnard Lin: A gurnard is a fish. His older sister is Remora (also a fish). Their mother is Minnow, daughter of Salmo (Latin for salmon/trout) who was the son of Carassia (feminised version of Latin name for the goldfish).

Blake and Avon d'Auron: More B7 sims. I made avatars of the original series characters Blake and Avon, but those were their surnames, leaving them free to be used as forenames. The original d'Auron was Cally, based on the telepathic alien in the series. She didn't have a surname, she was just Cally, so I had to invent one. Series Cally came from the planet Auron so I used that.

Minnie Moose: daughter of Mildew Moose. If she'd had a son he'd have been called Micky. Of course, the name works best with a Scottish accent. Hoots mon, there's a moose in the hoose etc.

Dave Goodbody: Dave, son of Bobbi, daughter of Freddie son of Fred. This particular ancestral line does not go in for fancy names. Fred's father was Charlie. Diehard fans of the Hollies may know of the song Charlie and Fred on their Butterfly album of 1967.

Anna-Beth Player: There are several ancestral lines with the tradition of giving a child a double-barrelled name derived from the initial letters of the father's mother and mother's father. Anna-Beth's mother is Polly-Anna whose father was Billy-Bob, whilst her father is Andrew whose mother was Adele, so some A-B or B-A combination was indicated.

Basil Britt: Any sim born as a Britt gets a name beginning with B. Bernie, Brenda, Billy, Betty, Bethany, Barney and now Basil.




Even better, I think, is Amanita, which sounds like a really pretty name for a girl even though it refers to a genus of deadly poisonous fungi. If I ever had a daughter I'd be tempted to call her that.

I want pictures of this toddler! Only been waiting about a year!

*boosts prolific post count*

Okay, so really, Bottom Text ended up being named Kars. I name them after anime characters if I have no idea.

Thanks to this thread making me think about it I realized I can use the lists I can make on nameberry.com to keep lists of names for Sims! I've had a profile there for years, love that site, and you can make lists of your own and save them as either public or private, so only you can see them if you want. I am now on a project to make different lists of kind of names that I can look at for easier naming for those Simmies! :D

Figured i'd mention it in case anyone else might want to make lists for themselves on it

I posted this a couple of times before, so please forgive the repetition.

Sometimes, I use online baby naming guides. If I'm searching for a particular ethnic name. there are guides for that. too. This one is the largest, but it's not the only one I use: http://fantasynamegenerators.com/ (There are a couple of sections wtih real names, but there are fantasy names as well.)
Sometimes, if I hear a really nice name, or one I haven't heard in a while, I use that.
Sometimes I use family and friend names.
Sometimes I use locations, signs of the Zodiac, months of the year, seasons of the year, etc. This has fallen out of favor with me, though. There are certain Zodiac names I wouldn't want to name my Sims. (Though Ophiuchus might be interesting.)
And sometimes, I use my "what's on my desk?" naming guide. Right now, I have some dice (to determine Uni outcomes), a stapler (because I needed a stapler?) and my green tea. So I could do a name like Distatea. I've come up with some weird alien names that way, and I'm pretty sure there aren't too many Distateas out there. (Apologies to anyone named Distatea.)

Most of the time, I use the first letter of the father's name and search the web for 'baby names that start with x'. If they are a particular culture (in my mind), the search would change to include ethnicity. Here are the exceptions, though. All aliens have planet/star/space object derived names. If there is already a theme to the names, I will stick with that. Buzz had Tank, Buck, and Ripp (all verbs), so when he had more kids and grandkids, their names were Wade, Chase, Dawn, Skipp, Tripp, and Grant. For Buzz's girls, I chose nouns - Rose, Brooke, and Jade. Therefore, when Rose had triplets with Comet Curious. I mixed two rules, I made the names start with C and match the theme of Rose's name: Cycad, Coleus, and Camelia. And rarely, I will use old family names or names that start with the same letter as a parent. Ripp named his kids with Ophelia, Lance and Lane (using L for his mother Lyla). Then Lane had twins and named them Logan and Lyla (after his grandmother). This system forces some unusual names at times since some letters do not have many names to choose from and I don't like to reuse names. I started this crazy system years ago when doing a challenge so I could keep track of which children had which father in a huge single mother household. Then it just got to be habit.

I am loving this

With the lists on nameberry you can type in anything, if you set it to girl or boy and it's on the site it'll show up pink or blue respectively but otherwise it'll show up black, so any name will do it doesn't have to be on the site

And I love that idea @gazania of making up names using stuff around you, i'm now going to try that

I :lovestruc this thread

I name them depending on the neighborhood type, if it's a rural or urban area then they get those kinds of names. Names I would think would be more popular in those areas in real life based on what I've seen.
But for regular suburban neighborhoods, I normally just randomize them in my head honestly.
You'll rarely find sims in my game named Anne or John That's not original, and I like to keep this different. Part of the joy of Sims, the sky's the limit with the creative possibilities.

I either go horribly punny, stick to the theme if they have one, or I use whatever pops into my head if I find it...unique or whimsical enough, I guess, or dig into my guilty pleasure baby names list x). Otherwise I've been using this name generator a lot (it's a steampunk one):

http://oobleck.org/steam/

Or I visit my favorite baby names site (Nameberry) and search for lists, or browse over the most popular names for that day.

I mostly use names from books, video games and anime, but i also use names from here if i need a specific name because of the parents' origin.

Baby Name Genie is kinda cool. You put in the last name and pick a gender and the genie gives a first and middle name. It repeats a bit but many of my sims have names that were at least inspired by its suggestions.

That's good. I wondered if I was annoying everyone with them. (It's nothing personal - I have BPD so I tend to get neurotic about these things.)

I am also loving these threads that you're creating :lovestruc

Right now i'm working on name lists on nameberry.com, so my problem won't be a lack of names when a baby is born, but instead "Too many choices! Which do I choose!" A problem I would like to have

Though on a funny note I was doing what gazania mentioned, about making up names, and I thought of a name and it sounded like it could be a real word so I googled out of curiousity
it is
it's a disgusting insect Glad I googled that one!

For names I use my handy-dandy yellow notebook, I have a stack of various colors. (: The yellow is for funny, punny, odd or just plain weird names I can use for my sims. I might be reading something or watching tv shows or ads and come up with a name that just might work for that special sim. Occasionally a name just pops up, makes me laugh so I jot it down. Some are for sims, but there are also names for pets, business, lots, streets and hoods, each type has it's own section. Every one and every thing will need some sort of name to tell them all apart and if it makes me happy, then dammit, they better like it too!

My baby names depend on various things.

For one, the nationality. I don't pay too much attention to that sort of thing, but if the father of my sim baby is named Tadao, it's reasonable to give his child a Japanese name.

It may also depend on the parents. I had a sim (an elder) named Felix. Felix was a family sim that fell in love and married (a much younger) mad scientist named George. They had three children before Felix died and each one received an old fashioned name like their parents: Edwin, Walter, and Lucas.

Finally, I usually just pull up baby names, pick a random letter, and work from there. lol

Reminds me of a sim I had some years ago. Reynard Voleuse and his partner Jeanne-Marie are by their names obviously meant to be French, and Reynard is (AFAIK) French for 'fox'. They had a daughter. I wanted to name her after her father, but didn't know the French for vixen, so I guessed at Renardine.

Only much later did I bother to google it and discover that Renardine is actually the brand name of a cat repellent banned in the UK.



And that echoes one of my rules for names - no two sims will have the same first name. I did have two Peters early on, and Alectoria Partridge's great grand-daughter was also Alectoria, but otherwise all different. Once a name has been given, that's it, it's gone, and no future sim (in that hood) can have it.

I do have a plethora of Alans, Alons, Amys and Brendas, but that's the fault of my broken name generator. The game chose them whenever it spawned a replacement townie.

I'm usually really lazy with names so I use the RandomStuff program and use the names included with it, with the names from Izza's townie replacement name mod. I extracted all the names - which was a pain - and added them to the file. I also added the pet names cos I like weird whimsical names??? Though I should probably get rid of names like Bad Luck and Mr Boots...

Although, if I do have a name in my head that I've been wanting to use for the baby, I'll probably just use that.

I use various methods, depending on the family. As I play offline, I tend to look for types of names and make notes of the ones I like beforehand, such as names from different countries. I had a baby book which I used to consult but which has been mislaid (unable to find since I moved house) and so am struggling lately.
Sometimes I use puns, depending on the surname.
Sometimes I combine the parents names (eg Alec and Lucy's daughter was named Alice).
Sometimes I go for names beginning with a certain letter, either alphabetical or to match a sibling or parent.
Sometimes I use the name of a grandparent or great-grandparent or the deceased sibling of one of the parents.
Sometimes I just make up a name on the spot, other times I'm prepared (it often depends on whether I like the family I'm playing or whether it's the baby of a major family).

Whatever I think of, and hopefully there are nobody else with the same names: Kevin and Kelly. Kyle and Kate. Kirsten and Kirby. Kim and Tim.Alex and Alexis. Andrew and Andrea. (And so on - although I sometimes give the name to wrong twin and had girls called Kevin and Tim and boys called Kelly and Kim ).