Sure, I have whole hoods where everyone has to have names like Jim and Bob, but I also have themed and just funny names. I would love to hear your names, and if you have a "process".
EXAMPLES: in my all-alien hood I have: Alpha, Ascention,,,to Quasar. My plant Sims: Woody, Bud, Hawthorn, Fern, and lots of flowers. From my fav movies: Arigorn, Galandrial, Thran. My foodies: Clove, Taffy, Sage, Herb, Cookie. My family of frogs: Popeye Soggy Bottom and his mother Sandy Bottom. The Stone family: Rocky, Jewel, Malicite, Clay.
My Karr family: Austin Tatious, Chevy, Bently, Lincoln. My farming hood, where a large family lives by fishing: Rod, Ray, Buoy, Gill. I've seen real-life people named after states: Dakota, Montana, Georgia. And I have lots of ethnic names .. Jewish, Italian, Indian, "rich" & "poor" (Heathcliff to Bubba), Oh, and wines; I do love a Petit Syrah.
And my favorites, a play on words. Hedda Lettuce, Stan and his sister Hellen Back (and their poor brother, Hunch) and the silly oriental brothers, Yar and Lo Phat and Wrong Way.
And to anyone who is offended by any of this, I can only say- my other name is Gedda Life.

I use constellation names for Sims born from alien abduction, but I'm curious to see other's people's way of naming Sims.

I open a movie and look at the credits for names.

I've mostly used constellation/star/galaxy/etc. names for alien sims, "plant-ish" names to plantsims and sometimes also fairies and the like, water-themed names for merfolk (the brief time I played with those), and so on - basically whatever fits with their supernatural type.

For human sims I don't have a particular naming system. Depends what I'm going to use them for. Storytelling sims might get some more thought behind their names (meanings, etc.), while other sims get named whatever I can come up with while staring at the naming box...

I have used several methods in the past. Right now, I am using two different random name generators for my two different in-play neighborhoods.

In Pleasantview-Strangetown, I use this site: https://randomwordgenerator.com/name.php. I tend to give these Sims more traditional names, and I just reroll until a name comes up that seems to fit the family. Examples: Mack, Jefferson, Van for Dirk and Lilith's children; Cory, Matt, Wilson for Angela and Tank's children; Jarod, Josie, Jody for Johnny and Ophelia's children; Giles and Rey (both pop-culture references) for Vidcund's twins. Sometimes, they get named after a deceased ancestor. Examples: Branden Broke, Donna and Danielle Pleasant, Junior (for John) Burb.

In alt-Strangetown, I am using this site: https://randomwordgenerator.com/name.php because it has much more unusual names and a wider variety of names from different cultures. I like this because almost all of the Strangetown ancestors have unusual names, so this site makes it easier to find names that continue that theme. Examples: Lurunda and Eleni Nigmos; Isidore and Xanthos Salamis. I'm also using some of the Strangetown names if it seems appropriate.

When I played Veronaville, I used a Shakespearean name randomizer to keep that theme going. I like the random element of using generators because it suggests names I never would have come up with.

I also enjoy the punny names, but I hardly ever use those myself. Maybe I'll consider it in a future neighborhood.

My townies and NPCs are silly. Some are a bit risque, and not sure I can mention many of them here. The not-too-x-rated ones include Earnest Fondling and Pilar Knickersoff. Also I have sims who look nothing like celebrities, named after celebrities. Most of these are English politicians or entertainers, so probably wouldn't make much sense to other nationalities. Funny to see a rather glamorous Ann Widdicombe walk by, or a short, bald Hugh Grant. And then there are stupid names, like Chris P. Bacon and Russ T Hinge. And some nonsense ones that are apparently real names, from this site such as Trentington Outhouse and Candy Button Disco.
The playable sims are not so silly, they are all ancestral from the founders and quite boring.

simsample: OMG hahahahah tell me MOOR! Dingle Whatsit

@grammapat Here is a list exported from LacunaD today, remember that some of these are in-jokes between me and my daughter and might not be funny to most (but they are hilarious to us ), the single names are pets and strays, and the short ones like Tol Hed are natives of the holiday island.
Not safe for sensitive eyes and the young! Sorry about the formatting it's just a data export from SimPE.

Some are offensive, I apologise- they are meant to be outdated and stupid and punny (I'm usually thinking of the Carry-On films when I'm choosing the names of NPCs) so not politically correct, nor representitive of anything. Many as I mentioned are real names collated on the name of the year website.

I'm pretty boring when it comes to naming pixels. I use the "Random Stuff" program which has the most popular first girls and boys names, along with surnames (should I need one). These come from Social Security's top 100 most popular baby names.

I formatted it to give me two of each sex's name so that in case I get twins, triplets or quads I'll be ready for it. The names are random enough so that no two pixels should have the same name, but that's not always true.

I just wish I were more imaginative when it comes to names. I'm just an old stick in the mud.

I play mythological lineages. I like learning about Classical genealogies as I play, and figuring out what kind of personalities and aspirations seem appropriate to figures of the pantheon.

simsample: is your Eileen Dover related to Ben Dover? And Etta Melon must be related to Walter...I'm using your "Lou Send", and take this opportunity to remind you of the Roman general, Biggus...um what was his last name?
One of the hardest groups for me to come up with names was my Southern po boys: Bubba, Jethro, Bodean, Clem, Jed, Otis, Tater, Weems (was my brother in law!), Waldo (went on a double date with him, he was from Mississippy? I could barely understand him).
And some more favorites: Riesling, Rose, Syrah, Sherry, Grigio, Giovese. And can you name the type these are?And add your favorites...

And I just remembered I had a dentist names Pain, and a chiropractor named Bones. FOR REAL! So who has a REAL name for me?

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So what are your merfolk names?

sturlington: Shakespearean names? I don't play that hood because I never bothered to look up names. Plus, much as I love architecture I can't remember if that's tudor or (had to look it up) "half timbered". I used to like to research and make "correct" hoods, now I just mess with the mess.

Well, I have no real naming sense, so I tend to look up name meanings on Behind the Name, with a focus on whatever nationality I think is appropriate for that Sim.

Been a long while since I played with merfolk (we're talking 10+ years here), so I honestly don't remember any spesifics, I just know I used a similar naming strategy as with aliens (been using the alien one pretty much since the start).

For my own sims, my extended family of in-game born sims, I name them various words, mostly (Biker, Crab, Temperance, Violin, Satellite...), as well as references to for instance media, or fictional, mythological or historical figures (Caligari, Demeter, Turing, Lovelace, Strummer...). Some of them are established first names too (Modesty, Zelda etc.) but it's the exception and not the rule. I have some pages in a notebook dedicated to writing down potential names for future sims. Sometimes themes happen between sets of siblings or generations, for instance there was a sim named Espresso who had a grandson named Cappuchino, who in turn has a nephew named Macchiato. Most of these sims have the surname Neighbour, so of course I've had a sim named Love thy as well as a Nextdoor.

I very rarely make new sims but if I do I usually give them the same kind of first name and then something random for a last name. Lately I've incorporated premades in my rotations and if they (or their offspring) have kids the way I name them depends on what I feel like that day. Sometimes they get regular names and I try to think of what the parent/s in question would name their kids. In the Swedish version, the Tinker family are called Wanda, Stefan and Millan, so when the parents had a pair of twins I thought the names Melanie and Stellan would fit perfectly into the family. On the other end of the spectrum, I named Circe and Loki Beakers daughter Tankette for no other reason than that I personally like Tank Grunt.

In Veronaville I pick names from Wikipedia's list of Shakespeare characters. I'm not concerned about what names belong to what plays but just pick something I like and that I feel like the parent/s in question might, too.

I think it would be interesting to have a Dickensian neighbourhood. He had such peculiar characters with the most wondrous names.

I'm currently reading Bleak House and the surnames are (as usual) a smorgasbord of delight: Jellby, Krook, Guppy, Boythorn, Dedlock, Pardiggle, Skimpole, Turveydrop for a far from complete list.

I am an avid reader and love crime novels.
My Sims are often named after fictional characters and made to look like the characters I see in my imagination.

I also name Sims after my favourite authors.

Our Springbok team inspires more than just names and one can make entire families based on them, eg.

Siya and Rachel Kolisi. He is black, she is white. Two kids - no, make that 4, since Siya and Rachel used his first Spfingbok pay to adopt 2 kids whose father - a relative of Siya - is a hopeless drug addict. These 2 kids are at University now, raised by Rachel and Siya as their own.

Plenty of stories in our team that will stun you.

Popular local names - Portia is very popular among some Agricans and I met around 8. I also like African names.

Happy Namegiving.

Right now I'm playing a Test of Time hood; they're still cavemen so they have random names. Sometimes it's based on when they were born e.g. a wolf walked past the lot during birth so the baby was named Wolwe, or they had finished picking apples before birth so the baby was named Afal. I try to be smart about it sometimes and google words in different languages but sometimes I'm lazy... I had a sim give birth to quads during a house fire, they were named Cinders, Ember, Rush and Ash. Sometimes it's random noises thrown together like Flah-g, Aang, Klork. Sometimes I google "worlds oldest names" (e.g. Kushim - the oldest recorded name, given to my first sim of this hood). Lately I've been trying to give them normal-ish names because at the end of next rotation we will be entering the Roman times, so I've named a few latin words or names. It would seem weird to have Ka-aha and Waffargg give birth to little Calpurnia, Octavius and Drecilla

In my Megahood, it depends on the family. I try to keep themes; e.g. when Darren Dreamer married Brandi Broke, they had: David, Darius, Dean, Dylan, Daphne, Drake and DJ - who then had children of their own with alliteration names (though being that 6 of 7 children were boys and ~75% of sims do the traditional "female takes on males name", they're all also mostly D names). I also try to think about sims interests; e.g. Julian Cooke had a son named Parsley, Fashionista sim Brittany Upsnott had a daughter named Armani.

Completely new families I just use random names - sometimes I pick out my favourite at the time or I just scroll r/NameNerds until something pops out, or I make the sim first and see what they look like.

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Actually I like "stick in the mud". My Pleasantview is always old fashioned American names. Prudence, Chastity, Mary, Nancy, Bob, Tom, Jim. Not a high-faluten pin whistle in the town.

I get my names when I browse the r/namenerds subreddit.

I haven't done many themes, only music and plants/flowers.

I'm a sucker for naming twins either rhyming names or names that start with the same letter (proof you shouldn't let me name real kids)

I want my sims' names to be a very eclectic mix. I actually love the way Maxis original townie naming system works - with people involved in making the game "donating" their first or last (or in very rare cases both) names to old and newly generated townies and NPCs. I have my own townie naming mod and this is the first time in a long time that I have a neighbourhood with Maxis townie names. The reason I usually want my own mod is that I need some of my favourite sim names in there - names of old favourite Sims 1 sims, or names of singers/authors/actors I like or fictional characters. It's also heavy in names from the Nordic countries to make up for me always playing the game in English and I want some words and placenames in there too. That naming mod sometimes spawns quite horrendous names - Kryten Blyton, anyone? - but that is pure delight to me. And sometimes it gets weirdly poetical too.

For my playable CAS sims, I like names that suit their backstories. The Toxics in Humidia were originally the former members of a punk band, who had given up on trying to make it in music and moved to the same small time to help build it up. The band was called Toxic Waste. Penny (nickname for Penderynne) Yardley-Whelks has a posh, slightly silly and agressively capitalist father that she rebelled a bit against. Sometimes I can't be bothered and just name them more normal things.

Families very often, but not always, have a naming theme. Dagfinn and Ivy Toxic named their kids after late sixties/early seventies singer/songwriters - Donovan and Joni. Donovan's twin daughters are named after eighties female singers - Nena and Toyah (funny that Toyah Wilcox is in simsample's hood, Toyah Toxic is named after her). If Nena and Toyah have children they will name them after nineties drummers. The worst naming theme I've ever come up with is in Humidia: I named all the six Roseland children by mixing their parents' names together in different ways and it's awful. It's okay for Kacy and Kayd, and I actually like Ynnyd more for every time I see it, but I'm not sure how happy Klyd, Cynn and Kad are with their names.

I loved reading all the punny names! I'm not very clever with puns myself, so I hardly ever use them. One exception I have I actually stole from a friend who always said if she had twin boys she'd name them Halvdan and Inge-Vidar. 'Halvdan', 'Inge and Vidar' are all older Nordic names. In themselves they are not funny, but 'Halvdan' with a slight change of pronunciation could mean 'Not quite up to standard', and in that context you also realisethat the combo 'Inge-Vidar' sounds a lot like you're saying 'Nothing to write home about' in Swedish. This was so good I had to use it for a set of sim twins.

Sometimes the vibes are right so there's a perfect name for a sim already. Other times, gotta press that randomise button on the names generator. I like to use real names and dont have a preference for meanings or origins. If it sounds right and looks right with the sim its good enough!

(my parents heavily implied that me and the sibling's names were picked by randomly opening the baby names book, so is not really a surprise thats also kind of my approach for my sims)

I've been mostly playing the same hood for around 3 years, so I only name my babies since I rarely make any new sims. My general rule is to find names alphabetically; first born baby has a name with letter A, second baby with a letter B, C, D, and so on. About a year or two years ago I spent some time gathering names and actually writing them down on paper, cut, fold, and keep them in separate containers all in a special box for naming my sims. However, sometimes I'm playing on my bed and I'm too lazy to go get my box so I use other methods:

I go to youtube and click on any video on my home page, go through the comments and find someone's name that I like. Some other times I like to use names from whatever TV show or movie I'm watching at the time, and use one of those names. When I have multiple babies at once, sometimes I like to give them themed names that go together. When the parents of a sim have the same letter at the beginning of their name, I use the same letter for their children. If there are people around me, sometimes I ask them for names and I use those, too.


I also thought about this while I was typing; when I created my neighborhood, I made 28 sims to be the founders of the town, and I had to create their names from scratch. I decided to write down a list of categories, as in different nationalities, movies, TV shows, games, or other prompts. Then, after creating a sim in body shop, I rolled a random number, and whichever category it gave me, I had to find a name that fit my sim's looks. I rolled once for their first name and once for their last name.

Some of the names I got:

- Fong Russo (French, Italian)
- Tom Griffin (Harry Potter, The 100)
- Edmund Hargreeves (Narnia, Umbrella Academy)

I'm boring, so I just look up names on baby name sites. Google's probably been thinking I'm pregnant for years now.