On unusual player-chosen names getting reused, I used to have a handle on this but then a player at MTS reported seeing sims born in his game with names like Slavatore, Ferd, and Brain. Those were misspellings he used by accident (rather than Salvatore. Fred, and Brian) and they couldn't possibly be in the game's first name database spelled so badly. On the other hand, many of my actively played sims have odd names that I've chosen, I've used all of the letters of the Greek alphabet by now and I have yet to see those, WhatHisName, or Shmoopie (etc.) show up on other sims on their own. One theory is that the sims need to be saved into the household bin for their first names to get picked up for further use but that doesn't seem to hold true in my case or I would occasionally have sims born or spawned in-game with the name "igazor" among some of the above. :)