I am very interested in names and their stories, and I thought I'd make my current playthrough more fun by coming up with themes for naming the ancestors of each of my starting Sims. I found this great site, which has lots of information about names and their meanings, as well as lists of names: https://www.behindthename.com/

I'm playing Pleasantview, and here are the themes I came up with:
Daniel/Mary-Sue: most popular names
Angela: angels or angelic names
Lilith: goddesses or demons
Cassandra: prophets
Dustin: Norse mythology
Darren/Dirk: things that start with D
Brandi/Beau: things that start with B
Alexander: scientists
John/Jennifer: variants on the name John
Lucy: "light" names

I'm also trying to keep these 5 families' surnames alive for as long as possible, so I developed some rules around those. For instance, if a Sim in one of my main families marries a townie or a playable I'm not actually playing, the person marrying in has to take the main family name, male or female, and all their children must have the name as well. So Lilith's husband took the name Pleasant, for instance.

If two Sims from the main families marry each other, I decided to be sexist and have them take the male last name (I think I'll hyphenate if it's a gay couple). But if a female Sim from one of my families has children without getting married, then her children will carry her last name.

Do you have any rules you use to name your Sims, or how else do you choose their names? Do you have any rules about which last name you use? Tell me about your naming conventions.

I'm also trying to keep as many last names alive as possible. My rules for last names:
1. When a male and female Sim marry, the female takes on the male's last name.
2. When same sex couple marry, I can choose the last name (I haven't hyphenated any yet, but I might in the future).
3. If unmarried female has a baby, depending on situation, the baby takes either mother's or father's last name (depends if she is raising the baby as a single mother or they are an unmarried couple living together).
4. When possible, I try to have at least one male Sim with a certain last name in each generation, or ensure passing on the last name in other ways (single mother, same sex marriage, etc.). It's not always possible but I do it whenever I can.

As for names, I have a few different methods:
1. For Sims with existing kids, I try to give them names that go well together in theme, style, etc. Sometimes I'll think of them on my own (Tinker family's adopted daughter is called Harmony, since their first daughter is called Melody; General Buzz Grunt's daughter with Erin Beaker is called Scout to keep up with military theme) or I'll use websites such as Nymbler to suggest names (that's how Brandi's daughter with Skip, Scarlett, got her name - I put in Dustin and Beau's name, and this was among Nymbler's suggestions). Sometimes I stick to the same letter as their siblings such as Deanna Dreamer, Jane and Jessie Smith, Luke Burb...
2. Sometimes, I think of themes that match the parents well. Lazlo Curious married Crystal Vu and both being Scientists, I named their twin boys after two famous scientists - Albert and Isaac. Rose Greenman had another (human) baby, and I am keeping up with the flower theme - Lily. I plan to have her have more kids, who will also get flower/plant names.
3. Sometimes I repeat their ancestor's names, or variations of them. Don and Cassandra have daughters Isabella (after Bella Goth) and Nicole (after Don's father, Nicolo). I intend them to have another son, who I am planning to name Adrian (after Don's mother, Adriana). The Ramirez family had a son, and just like how daughter was named Tessa after her grandmother Theresa, calling him John after his grandfather Juan.
4. First generation in-game born Veronaville descendants have names from Shakespeare's plays. I have not yet decided what to do about marriages of Veronaville Sims with non-Veronaville Sims (Mercutio and Tybalt are currently engaged to Lilith and Angela - yeah I know, a bit ironic - so I'm not sure how I'll deal with that yet).
5. I like to match last names to the parents' ethnic origins, if I feel like it makes sense. The Beakers just recently had a son called Odin.

Here are the families in my hood and how I name them:
Piccolo: the founders of the hood who love to throw lavish parties, are mainly in the political career, and live in Piccolo Manor. All Sims are named after royalty, either real historical characters or ones from historical dramas. I have Henry, Catherine, Diane, Clarissa, Sebastian, and Francis.
Romana: Based on the book I read in school to learn Latin, "Familia Romana." All Sims have classical Latin names. Currently there's Aemilia, Julius, Corona, Regina, Crassus, Marcus, Luna, Stella, Pastor, Septimus, and Julia.
Fraser: Named after Outlander characters, but my Sims are nothing like the characters in Outlander. I have Jamie, Claire, Faith, Fergus, Willa (a female in my game, named after Jamie's son William), and Brianna.
Parker: Named after my favorite National Parks and hiking trails. I have Kaibab, Shenandoah, and Forrest.
Baker: Named after baked goods/ingredients. They also just so happen to own a bakery. Evan, Sugar, and Bud.
Fromage: Named after cheeses. The parents have Grilled Cheese secondary aspirations and I want them to open a Grilled Cheesery when they have enough money. Pepper, Jack, Ched, and Mac.
Wolff and Dane: My dogs in real life are Chip, Winnie, and Ellie. I made Sims characters based on what I imagine they'd be like as Sims (quite entertaining) and named them Charles Wolff, Winnifred Germain, and Eleanor Dane. Charles married Winnifred, and Eleanor married a townie. For both families, I plan to name their kids after different dog breeds (Akita, Jack and Russell, etc.).

I too have a patriarchy, but it's not set in stone. I will usually make townies take on my Sims' names- but I made a mistake with Eleanor Dane and Amin Sims, so now their last name is Sims- but I just won't care if that line ends. I might change it back to Dane. However, if one of my Sims ends up with Goopy GilsCarbo I am definitely keeping Goopy's last name because he's iconic. I really care about preserving the Piccolo, Romana, Fraser and Parker names, since they were my first four families so the rules are more loosely applied to them too. I'm not allowing Sims within those 4 families to mate to prevent everyone from becoming related.

I plan to add Strangetown and Widespot soon. Widespot already has the themes/puns in place. Strangetown can have themes in some families, too. I like to think about what they would name their kids to fit in with the rest of their family.

I don't have rules, but there are definitely patterns.

I like when a family passes a name down - I tend to do it directly with men. Ex. Matthew, Matty, Mateo; John, Ian, Johnny; Daniel, Danny.
But Cassandra had a daughter she named Bella, while Bella's triplet sister (Ilana) named one of her daughter's Izzy (both from Isabella). Ilana also named a daughter Cassie for her mom. And another Cassandra/Darren daughter (Danna) who named her daughter (Correen) after her sister (Corrie).

I did create an entire family (the Lowry's) that are named after athletes (mostly the Raptors for now).

As for last names, it really depends on personality. Angela was happy to ditch Pleasant for the awesome Phoenix last name, but Lilith preferred to hyphenate (Pleasant-Dreamer is an amazing hyphenated last name). Dustin, Beau and their sister Skipper (named after Dad obviously) all ditched Broke when they got married.
Dina is still a Goth although she's been widowed for years. All her children had Arthurian names - Morgan a, Viviane, Nimuae, Arthur, Elaine, Lance - although it was Viviane who ended up seducing Arthur (Arthur was actually biologically related to Dustin and Lindsay, not to Dina or Mortimer, although Mortimer did not know that).
Nina never married, but had twins with fiance Daniel, and they named their son Danny Pleasant and their daughter Gina Caliente.
Lucy took her husband's name, Zaide, but after the divorce created her own last name (Westenra from Dracula).
And when I forgot to write down a townie last name before a wedding when I wanted Mary-Sue to take on that name because Oldie is a weird name, and she wasn't keeping Pleasant, I did remember it started with A, so I looked to my bookshelf for inspiration -Asimov.

So it changes frequently.

I name my sims with silly names with metaphors or things like.
Ginger Vitis
Sun Set
Va Cation
Lori Lost
Very Calm
Dilly Dreamer
Wendy Windy

Helps me remember the names too since they're all catchy.

I use a randomizing program loaded with names from the US census bureau. For each sex, I've got 2 names. They're never the same twice.

Simlish names. Why they need to have english or german or whatever? They are sims. I am having a blast creating these.
Also a rule, every household with own name. Whoever wants to create new household and start family, changes family name.

No rules what so ever in my regular hoods. But in my themed hoods I like to use names matching the theme. Like in my japanese themed hood I use japanese names. Mostly google names or use names from different tv-series and animes

For premades, I look through the family tree for inspiration. Like others, if they already have a child, I'll try and stick with names that sound good with the older sibling's name. Plantsims usually get a plant name. Aliens usually get named after prominent scientists or science fiction characters, or something green (Sage, Forest etc.). I also put the rest of the family's names in Nymbler sometimes, or look at the social security list of names.

I've got Eli Jankowsy with her husband Ami who's last name was Adamski before they were married.Jay Hobbs came a year later with her husband Tracy who's original last name was Smith though he had sisters who kept Smith as their last name in marriage.They both came to Dodge in the Kansas territory to settle on their hoemsteads with the Jankowskys arriving in the spring of 1840 and the Hobbs family came the following spring.It's fall in 1841 and the families are both getting ready for the coming winter now.
I have rules that the founding families will at least have to have at least one of their children retain their family name and that applies to other families I move in that weren't moved in as townies.I move some in as townies and might not care if their last name is retained like with the other families.

I like to 'memorialize' my favorite creations as a tribute to them !
As well as other names I find delightful from books and pc games.
The Dune series and Myst games have been an inspiration.

I actually don't have strict rules for names in my hoods.

I follow these, unoriginal, rules:
1) I name children what I'd imagine that sim would name them; for example, Nina's son is called 'Romeo,' since I remembered that name being Italian, I think. It's also just a name I'd imagine Nina giving her son for some reason.

2) Some children get named after relatives; for example Brandi's youngest with Skip is called 'Skipp,' because I imagined that Brandi would name him after her late husband, but I didn't want 'Skip Jr.' So, funnily enough, I took inspiration from 'Ripp,' for the added P at the end. Another example would be Cassandra and Don's twins being called Isabelle and Maribella, of course, named after Cassie's mother, Bella Goth.

3) To keep a theme going; for example, when Brandi married Darren, they had two kids called David and Daisy to keep the 'D' theme going. Same for Pollination Tech#9 and Jenny, they had a daughter called Janet to keep the 'J' theme going. Daniel and Mary-Sue's youngest is called Gabriel after the angel, as they already have twins named after an angel and an archangel/demon, so why not?

4) I can't think of a name, so I just pick one I like, which ends up lining up with a character anyway. I oftentimes end up picking names of video game characters.

Yeah, nothing special, pretty much what everyone above me does.

1) In order to keep family names alive and not have to try to change Lot Names from the original family that moved into it, the person moving into the lot, takes on the last name of their spouse who lives there.

2) Babies generally get a combination of their parents name. It doesn't have to make a "real" name. Fran and Andy's daughter became Frandy. Parents Jefna and Delos had twins named Delna and Jelos. Estelle and the Pollination Tech had a daughter named PollyEsta. But sometimes I do go with a theme as well. Autumn had children named Summer and Winter. Faith had daughters named Grace, Harmony, Hope, and Joy.

3) And if I get totally stuck, then I'll refer to the lists of male and female names I downloaded from somewhere and pick a first name that starts with the same letter as one of the parents.

I just name them after fictional characters. Most of my Sim names can be found in a variety of crime novels.

Alexander isn't named after a scientist, his name comes from the masculine version of Alexandra, which was an alternate name for Cassandra in Greek mythology. He is, simply put, male Cassandra.

I fly by the seat of my pants every single time I have to name a baby. No set rules at all for first names unless I make them up on the spot. I do have themes, very much like people have in real life. For surnames I tend to pull those from real life or from literature. I have two family names in my game right now that are maiden names from some of my ancestors that were lost in the family tree via marriage, Breedlove and Wistinghaus.

Wistinghaus in German so I started with a couple of names I knew off the top of my head and then did the exact same thing every time they had a child. I imagined them wanting to hold onto their heritage this way. Breedlove has Native American origins and is essentially a made up name all the way around. I have used some of the first names of my ancestors for the kids but they are just old school names like Dorothy and Dorcas.

As for name changes via marriage I like to think I'm modern but in reality old habits die hard and I find myself using the males name. In the case of my same sex marriages the name is the house name. I don't hyphenate anything. I play an extremely lose legacy style for my four founding families but often times the name is only kept on the lot with the family living there having a different last name.

I started this hood with 4 founding families last names Huntington, Robinson, Meager and Storm.
Huntington is going strong heading towards the 3rd generation.
Robinson is in the 3rd gen now but it's looking like it won't go beyond it, namewise anyway.
Storm is in 2nd gen and will probably have a 3rd, there is only one offspring there and I'm not sure yet if he will have kids or not.
Meager didn't make it out of the 2nd gen so far. They had female offspring only, the father died, the mother remarried taking a different last name. 2 of the 3 daughters married and took different last names. The one remaining might never marry and I'm not sure if she will have a child or not. I'm not going to force her to for the sake of the name. Instead the widow made a large donation to the town that went towards a new park and it was named after her late husband. They also have a street named after them.

As for the themes in regards to first names, these are some of the ones I've used;
Names that all start with the same letter
Names that fit the family's ethnic background: Hispanic, Irish, German and so on.
Names I like
Names from books I've read
Names that are passed down, naming someone after the grandparent for example
Names that are old and out of fashion

Only thing I can say I look up is when dealing with ethnic names from groups I'm unfamiliar with. I don't know a lot of Asian names just off the top of my head for example. I do try to avoid using celebrity or people I know real names. I have one real life couple in my game right now that I made to fill a request for someone. I like them but I regret making them as I keep trying to make them follow their real life counterparts and it's screws with my head.

I always give my sims a name that I find funny, or else that will make me wonder what the heck I was thinking when I look back on it years later.
This naming convention has been entertaining me no end lately, as I am playing a hood that I hadn't played for over a year. I'm having to get reacquainted with all of the sims, even Tensil Cheesebrew, Randy Fumble and Patty Wooters. What was I thinking??

I use the site www.magicbabynames.com where I put in the parents' or the other kids' names and choose from the list, or sometimes I have a name that pops into my head at the moment the sim is born, or maybe name the kid a derivative of a grandparent's or other relative's name. A combination of the site and the last kind of naming is what gave me the beautiful names of Edward, Jacob and Bella once. It definitely was.

Ha! If you go to that site and put in the name Lilith, Angela is the first name on the girl's list.

Sims who marry usually take the male Sim's last name, unless the bride is an heiress. Same-sex couples generally take the name of the older Sim, again with the exception of an heir/ess who wants to perpetuate the family name. Some Romance Sims live together without marrying, in which case the children are born with the mother's last name, but if there are multiple children some of them might take the father's name later. Garrett and Georgia Newson once changed their last name to Goodie because the Goodies were the only 'parents' they remembered.

The eldest child will generally have a given name based on the mother's maiden name, if possible, although some surnames really don't lend themselves to that. Subsequent children may be named for (great)grandparents, and after that I just have a list of names and the baby gets the next one on the list (assuming they don't already have a sib with that name, of course!). The list comes from the authors of books I'm reading. So, for example: Joe Carr married Tania Pearson and they have a son, Percy Carr. If they have a daughter, she will be named Edith after Tania's gran. If Edith Carr then marries and has children, she will take her husband's last name, her eldest will be either Carson or Cara, and subsequent children would be Quentin and Natalie, after Edith's grandparents. Edith might also have younger siblings named Quentin and Natalie, but that's okay as long as her children have a different last name.

Very occasionally, I will ignore the rules because I think of a name I just really like, or because I've accidentally started a theme, like the Respite Ottomas kids having "Brady Bunch" names. I don't often go in for puns, although Nervous Subject once had children named Loyal Subject and Della Kate Subject.

In regards to freshly made CAS sims, I just use a name that randomly comes to me. However, whenever a baby is born, I use a baby name book from the 80s I got from the thrift store a few years ago. Depending on the gender, I flip to a random page, and pick whatever name on either page that sticks out the most or sounds the best. But every now and then, a name comes to me for babies that just come to me and seem perfect. It really depends.

I just added a new name to my list.
Lightning Inajar
Named after my FF13 lightning character. The original Lightning from FFXIII did not have a last name, so I had to come up with a last name for her as my Lightning sim turned out really well.

"Zi" isn't even legal in Japanese phonology. This doesn't generate names in Japanese, so no, it's not a good method to vary your names in Japanese. A good method for doing that would be actually learning how names are constructed in Japanese.

It was a joke, a game. It was not actual Japanese, and I've deleted the post.
My mistake.

It won't happen again.

Namehunter on Nameberry

I use the parents' or siblings' names for the inspirations and see what it generates.