Romani naming conventions

[VARVS]

Please delete this thread if appears twice. I am new to this forum and I am not sure it worked the first time.

As a history buff and a gaming enthusiast, I am blown away with the quality of this mod. I will be buying a new computer solely to play EB II (MTW2 is too slow)

Keep in mind, I know nothing of scripting, so if some of these changes are not possible, disregard

1. Praenomen. Marcus, Marcus, Marcus! Almenerations of MArcus ost half of the population was named marcus, can we get a higher rate of Marcus, Caius, and Gnaeus, and less Manius AUlus and Decimus?

2. Generational names. Firstborns named after fathers, named after their fathers, etc. It would be confusing, but Romans themselves were confused. Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Augustus's son in law, was named after about five generations of Marcus, and this was not unusual.

3. Familial names. Appuis was a Claudian name. It looks weird to see Appius Cornelius Rufus.

4. Adoption could you name them after the adopter with -anus added to the gens name?

5. Acquired cognomen. When someone becomes crippled or loses a standard, they acquire a "the crippled" or "the unlucky" to their name. Is there anyway to latinize this to Mancus, Claudus or remove that entirely? Additionally, names are erased forever if an individual conquers Africa before they have a son, leading all their progeny to have a binomen with Africanus, ie Marcus Africanus. I am not sure what triggers Augustus, but that seems to pop up late in the game and is quite a historical and annoying.

These are minor cosmetic changes that would only slightly improve the gameplay, not worth any significant amount of time to alter if its difficult. I want to stress that it is only minor, and I think the EB is doing a fantastic job!

[bobbin]

4. Adoption could you name them after the adopter with -anus added to the gens name?

I think this was supposed to be in EB (its in the trait files) but it doesn't seem to work or at least it doesn't seem to work with me.

[Urg]

I'm impressed. Varus you're a smart guy. It would be great if these changes are incorporated (subject of course to whether they are possible).

My only comments are (using Varus' numbered paragraphs):

1. Other praenomina, such as Lucius, were also common. Some of the less common ones, such as Quiontus and Sextus, were still far more common than the very rare ones like Kaeso or Statius. It would be possible I suppose to list each praenomen with a percentage likelihood of occurring (again, if that is possible in terms of game mechanics).

2. Agreed, with a couple of minor qualifications. Firstly, although in EB children never seem to die before they reach 16, it was not all that uncommon for children to die in ancient Rome. As a result, the eldest child to reach adulthood may not be the firstborn (if the firstborn died) and therefore would not bear the father's praenomen. Secondly, from recollection (I haven't looked at this in a while) there were some families who didn't name their children after the father, or instead seemed to flip flop back-and-forth between a pair of praenomina. Again, it may be possible to cater for this by giving eldest sons a precentage likelihood of having their father's praenomen. (I would understand if having two FMs with identical names would spoil the game mechanics).

3. Appius was I think a Sabine praenomen, and since the Claudii were the leading Roman family of Sabine heritage they were well known to use it. The wikipedia article on this praenomen is not bad (seems to be well researched with good sources). I agree with Varus that Appius should be reserved for the Claudii.

I agree with everything else Varus says. It would be very cool for us Roman-genealogy-inspired-nerds if these changes were made.

[DrFitzgerald]

Linking to the ideas stated in this thread was there any other common suffixes added to Roman names like Africanus? Sort of emulating the Hellenic suuixes where 'the Vanquisher' or 'the conqueror' were added onto the end of General's or leader's names. Just a thought, because it would add a nice cosmetic difference which would boost the game's atmosphere.

[Urg]

There are heaps and heaps of Roman cognomina and agnomina. We should have a think about some of the better ones, although the more "common" ones are probably going to reflect the prominence of one or more Roman family.

A fun example is Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator. Maximus means 'greatest'. Verrucosus means 'warty'. Cunctator means 'delayer'.

[Atilius]

1. Praenomen. Marcus, Marcus, Marcus! Almenerations of MArcus ost half of the population was named marcus, can we get a higher rate of Marcus, Caius, and Gnaeus, and less Manius AUlus and Decimus?

All of our praenomina should occur with equal frequency.

2. Generational names. Firstborns named after fathers, named after their fathers, etc. It would be confusing, but Romans themselves were confused. Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Augustus's son in law, was named after about five generations of Marcus, and this was not unusual.

3. Familial names. Appuis was a Claudian name. It looks weird to see Appius Cornelius Rufus.

Sons did not always take their father's praenomen. L. Cornelius Scipio's sons were Cnaeus and Publius. I understand your concern though. Unfortunately, the game assigns praenomina randomly, so there is no way to associate a character's praenomen with his father's praenomen or his gens.

You actually understate the number of consecutive generations using the name M. Claudius Marcellus:

M. Claudius Marcellus, cos. 331
M. Claudius Marcellus, cos. 287
M. Claudius Marcellus, (no office)
M. Claudius Marcellus, cos. 222 and 4 more times
M. Claudius Marcellus, 208 trib mil, 204 trib pleb, 200 C aedile, 198 p., 196 cos., 189 censor, d 177
M. Claudius Marcellus, cos. 166 and 2 more times
M. Claudius Marcellus, (no office)
M. Claudius Marcellus, c aedile 91
M. Claudius Marcellus, cos. 51

In addition, the M. Claudius Marcellus who was consul in 196 had a brother of the same name, who was consul in 183 BC.

4. Adoption could you name them after the adopter with -anus added to the gens name?

We could, but this would require adding hundreds of new name traits and triggers. Adoption is a fairly rare occurrance in our game, so I don't think it's worthwhile.

5. Acquired cognomen. When someone becomes crippled or loses a standard, they acquire a "the crippled" or "the unlucky" to their name. Is there anyway to latinize this to Mancus, Claudus or remove that entirely?

That can be done. If we have the resources to devote to the project, we'll consider it.

Additionally, names are erased forever if an individual conquers Africa before they have a son, leading all their progeny to have a binomen with Africanus, ie Marcus Africanus.

We can easily remove the inheritance of the "victor" agnomina. I hadn't devoted any thought to this before, but that's probably the best course of action.