Forum Discussion

Seasoned Ace

Re: Sims 4 Married names PC

I used to love this, but then I started using MC Command Center and it changes last names. I raged against this without turning it off for some time 😉 and finally got used to it. I still manually edit names sometimes. My same-sex couples often hyphenate, for example, as do opposite-sex couples where it seems appropriate (like, if the bride is famous under her original name). I'm perfectly fine with my married couples keeping their birth names forever, but since MCCC will change it if I don't, I always think about how I want to handle it now.

I have baggage. My mother and I got into a big argument when I was in college about it. She really liked my boyfriend so she started saying things like "If you don't marry [boyfriend] I will!!!" and "[My first name] [his last name], WHAT A BEAUTIFUL NAME!!!!!" and I told her that I intended to keep my name when I got married. You'd think I said I intended to drop out of college and rob liquor stores for a living! She told me that she would never, ever accept me going by my birth name when I was married, that she would address all correspondence to "The [his last name]s," that she would stop using my first name and address me exclusively as "Mrs. [his last name]," etc. etc. etc. The boyfriend and I eventually broke up, alas, and my mother failed to marry him. 😉 The issue never came up again because I carefully avoided the whole thing by refusing to marry altogether. 😉

I feel that the Sims 4 is trying to be supportive of newlyweds choosing the last name they want to use. I even think that's the whole point of including the Spencer-Kim-Lewis family. Their whole bio is about how they've been hyphenating for multiple generations now.

2 Replies

daikoyu
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago
I am huge fan of double-barrelled name as Spencer-Kim in my game. I don’t want that the game just overwrites one last name, I think this would be bad. As a compromise I think @PugLove888 suggestion would be the best. That the game just asks if we want this.
@xochiquetzl_xkvn I understand you, if I ever would get marry, I would keep my last name or use a double-barrelled name. I don’t have any plans to have kids so that argument but your children… will never come up. Lucky, I have parents which both stances understand, now more as ever (climate change, economy, and all other worse problems which we are heading in)
PugLove888
Hero (Retired)
4 years ago
@xochiquetzl_xkvn , in my game i have some families with hyphenated names and some without. I like to use whatever I think fits the family I'm playing! With the Spencer-Kim-Lewis family, it certainly fits! But when I tried to name my save file where I played them after their name, it wouldn't fit in the box 😢 and I ended up calling the save SKL!😅

The only problem I see with hyphenated names is if a hyphenated named person marries another person with a hyphenated name, and the resulting name becomes extremely long, which ends up to people having to drop some of the names anyway, which is what they were trying to avoid in the first place. But still, I do like the idea of showcasing both families!

@daikoyu if your given last name was something not viewed as a good last name (kind of like how if your name was Butts or Buttz) you would probably be in a hurry to change your name! 😅 Also, people with either long names or hard to pronounce names are more likely to take on the name of their spouse for simplicity's sake! Or else you could remain single and get your name changed legally. 😉

@urnum1friend , yes your name is very important and in a game like the Sims where we have many, many different characters that need names, it is important that we are happy with the names we can give our Sims! A name is even more personal than a pronoun, so it does seem odd that we can't have the choice of either which name to name a newly married couple, or the option to hyphenate (and if we can hyphenate, we should be able to pick the order of the hyphenated name)! 🤨

@simsplayer818 I ran into that problem with the Spencer-Kim-Lewis household when I first tried to name a save after them! 😢