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[arfa-folk]

[edits: some of what I was suggesting was already part of the game...]

One of the things I love about DF is the way that randomly generated in-game occurrences are, to some extent, significant and purposeful.

For instance, I had a caged unicorn escape due to a problem transferring him from one cage to another and he went on a huge murder spree in my fortress.  Because he had been involved in so much murder the game gave him a name "Murder Satins."   I love how metal that name is -- perfect for a murdering Unicorn.  After he died, one of the dwarves in my fortress made an artifact out of his bones -- a unicorn bone floodgate. That's just beautiful stuff. 

My understanding from Trif (see below) is that words each have category markers and that certain types of events (like murdering people, or being a Unicorn) have flags associated with those categories so that they avoid completely some categories of words and are more prone to other categories.

I would like to see more of this.   I'm sure Toady, being a genius, has thrown in lots of this kind of stuff.  I'm just here to say I support it and appreciate it and would like to see lots more.

It would be neat to have the dwarfs treat significant places with special consideration -- pausing at a waterfall where they fell in love and maybe having a thought about that spot.  Mourning the dead, etc. etc.  I know there's a lot in this direction anyway in dev, but I guess what I'm saying is that weird coincidences, combined with the confirmation bias are such powerful forces in this game it would be neat to see Toady really concentrate on this angle for a while -- I bet he would come up with some pretty badass stuff.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

interesting thought. i'll stick around to see it develop. ptw

[GreatWyrmGold]

The biggest problem is teaching the AI to know what makes sense. About the best I would hope for is being able to tell DF what symbols* are best-applicable to what kinds of names.

*Categories of words. Beauty, Nature, etc.

[rabidgam3r]

I'm sorry, but the names are the dorfiest parts of DF. Take away that, and what do you have? An elf.

[GoombaGeek]

I'm sorry, but the names are the dorfiest parts of DF. Take away that, and what do you have? An elf.

"Hello my name is Likod Punchface"
"I only have a first name, sorry"
"What is it?"
"Cacilitheiliomename"
*magma*

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm sorry, but the names are the dorfiest parts of DF. Take away that, and what do you have? An elf.

Well, and the sandbox nature, sieges, megaprojects, infinite play until death, magma, madness, sieges, *spoilers*, feats of badassery, !!science!!, challenges...

[arfa-folk]

So, my thinking was that it wouldn't take away the randomness of the names, just sort of guide it.  Maybe you could categorize types of words, like "beauty" "pretty" "bright" "cheerful" for instance. All of those words would have a flag for "niceness" or the like. 

Then you have certain events associated with historical objects, and those different types of events would themselves have flags, once such flag being "niceness."

For instance, you have a dwarf who works in a hospital. He could historically collect a lot of "niceness" flags.  When it comes time for the computer to name something he's grown attached to, it would add up all the flags he's collected.  That number would then be used as a modifier when the computer is randomly selecting a name. 

This system (or something like it but better) wouldn't result in vanilla names, just slightly more "significant" names.  That's my thought anyway.

They would still feel pretty durn dwarfy.

[arfa-folk]

I just added this as a suggestion on ESV if you want to vote for it.

NAME: "Improved Language / Naming Significance / other significance improvements"

DESCRIPTION: "Have DF guide the random naming of objects / dwarfs / fortresses by categorizing words and events. Example: "good" v "evil" A dwarf associated with lots of "evil" (like elf killing?) would nickname his favorite sword something more evil. Additionally, add more "memories" of dwarfs of significant places they've been / things they've experienced. They sometimes go out of their way to revisit those places, or if see them again incidentally they experience a thought, is one example."

[Xantalos]

Sounds good.

[Bot Hack]

One botched generated world I had was named Thithareth. Amazing alliteration. Sounds most noble. I believe that meant The Universe of Portending, something ominous. What I noticed at least, was that Universe had a different word for it in other maps, like Uzath or such. A particularly isolated cave on an island in that world had a terribly claustrophobic name, literally something similar to Nozutngogngo.

[arfa-folk]

One botched generated world I had was named Thithareth. Amazing alliteration. Sounds most noble. I believe that meant The Universe of Portending, something ominous. What I noticed at least, was that Universe had a different word for it in other maps, like Uzath or such. A particularly isolated cave on an island in that world had a terribly claustrophobic name, literally something similar to Nozutngogngo.

I didn't think about it for world gen.  Man, that would be awesome....

[Trif]

I'm surprised that nobody brought it up yet: names aren't completely random. DF sorts them into symbols and chooses a random word from a fitting symbol.
Symbols are things like ROMANTIC, MAGIC, HOLY, NATURE, COLOR or DEATH (look in language_SYM.txt for more). Words can fit in multiple categories - the word SWORD for example is sorted in VIOLENT and ARTIFICE.

Each intelligent civilization has their own preference for naming. Elves for example won't use the symbols DOMESTIC, SUBORDINATE, EVIL, NEGATIVE or UGLY. Goblins like using EVIL words, but won't use DOMESTIC, FLOWERY, HOLY, PEACE, NEGATOR or GOOD words.

I'm not completely sure how detailed the name generator gets, but the name "Murder Satins" for a rampaging unicorn wasn't a coincidence.

[arfa-folk]

So basically thr game already does exactly what I had in mind

[GreatWyrmGold]

To an extent. I don't think there are any tags relating unicorns to nicer symbols yet, though.

[Scoops Novel]

This is as it should be.