How do they come up with the names of Spies?

[tedoll78]

I want a British spy named "Mr F."

 

[Gehennas]

Russia:
Alexei
Lena (female)
Dmitry
Anastasia (female)
Tatiana (female)
Boris
Doktor Seriy
Mikhail
Natacha (female)
Zmeya

Almost all of these are regular russian names, but with some mistakes and inaccuracies.

Lena - it is a shortened form. Full name is Yelena (slavic form of name Helen)
Natacha - same here. Full name is Natalya (form of Natalia). Also, correct transliteration should be "Natasha"
Doktor Seriy - really strange. I don't know whom is he supposed to be. Can be translated as "Dr. Grey".
Zmeya - (russian word "Змея") means "Snake". Grammatical gender of this word is feminine - that's the problem. If the authors wanted to give the male spy this nickname, thay should have call him "Zmey" (russian "Змей").

The conclusion is: authors just don't care. They have taken some random names and translated some words using translate.google.ru.

 

[ahawk]

Annnnd Rome has a spy named Brutus... et tu?

 

[VainoValkea]

Huh, there's an American spy called "cousin" and a celtic spy called "col ceathar" which means "cousin".

Am I missing some well-known spy thing?

Also, "Kusin" in Swedish list.

 

[JtW]

As to the Polish list: Benita and Alenka make no sense whatsoever. Also "Josef" is not the correct spelling of the nam in Polish.

A minor gripe but it looks weird for me as a native speaker.

 

[Dai]

The Polynesian spies are a mix of historical figures, spirits/gods, and some stuff I don't recognize. I don't think there's any pattern or theme to them, or anything connecting any of them that I recognize to espionage.

 

[Mozzington]

Is there a reason why great spymasters like Sir Francis Walsingham were not considered for civ's like England etc?

 

[VainoValkea]

I guess there's "great spymaster that everyone knows about" and "even greater spymaster no one knows about". Except Firaxis' naming team.

 

[Mozzington]

It's just annoying. People like Walsingham fit into the game so much, especially now with the introduction of Catholo and Prots etc. Then theres Thomas Phellipes and Arthur Gregory but instead we get left with crap like James.

 

[Gucumatz]

For the Maya they also used the same god twice .

Gukumatz/Kukulcan are the same god - just written in different spellings from the different Maya languages

 

[MantaRevan]

The spanish have a spy named Señor X

 

[MantaRevan]

Why is Shaanxi an Indian man? Shouldn't that be a Chinese name?

 

[oddtail]

As to the Polish list: Benita and Alenka make no sense whatsoever. Also "Josef" is not the correct spelling of the nam in Polish.

A minor gripe but it looks weird for me as a native speaker.

Yeah, not to mention "Marian" being a female name (in Polish, it's a male name), and despite most names being first names, there is one last name AND one full name (first name + last name).

I am baffled by this. It looks stupid and weird, and it could have been avoided by letting a native speaker of Polish take three minutes to look at the name list, and point out the weird ones (which make up, in one form or another, almost half of the list...).

I can only assume other languages are just as bad. And I honestly don't get it. Is it that difficult to come up with a short list of common names for a bunch of languages, which is what they were apparently going for?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

There are definitely some variations of the same name being used between different civs.

There are some variations on Mr. X. Prof. Rex (Professor X) is my favorite. I also see several Dr. Grays.

 

[pilot00]

Huh, there's an American spy called "cousin" and a celtic spy called "col ceathar" which means "cousin".

Am I missing some well-known spy thing?

Yep, one of them became a US immigrant and they were cousins ofc

 

[Mozzington]

It's just stupid and could really add to the immersion of the espionage side of things - to me at least. I honestly don't care for "Scott" but if I knew Walsingham was on a mission...well that's different all together!

 

[MantaRevan]

I enjoyed seeing that the celts can get a spy named Pádraig. That's my name!

 

[otaman1]

Is Daniel Bissell an American spy?

 

[Pericus]

I agree with Gehennas. I do not get the impression that Fraxis did not put a lot of effort into the spy name theme. They might have used auto translators.

Neef is the Dutch word for cousin.
The "Mr." in Mr. X would stand for the title "meester" which is the title for people how studied law. I think mister should be translated to "de heer" (dhr. for short). meester is a correct title but somehow I get the idea it was not the thing fraxis was aiming for..

And when I look at the name Marten I really think it should be spelled Maarten.

 

[Mozzington]

Is Daniel Bissell an American spy?

Nope, but these are exactly the sort of spies that should be in the game.