Spectrum Computing

I'm planning what will probably be another terrible BASIC game (it's a sports simulation, but I don't want to say much more than that yet as I think it's a bit over-ambitious and may come to nothing). Anyway, it's going to involve generating (from a list of probably a hundred or so surnames) a fairly large amount of character names and for the moment I've just been going through the phone book (yeah, I still have one of those) to find common English (and some non-English) names. But I thought - in addition that that - it would be nice if anyone from here would like to have their surname included as part of the list.

If you would like that, please post your surname in this thread (but if you don't want your name on a public forum, just PM me instead). I'd love to include as many people from here as possible.

This isn't some weird identity theft thing, by the way. Honestly, that's just not my scene.

Sorry for the double-post but this might be something else that you lovely people can help me with. I've started the names database with Spectrum-related people (and a few from the C64). They're just more interesting names than generic phone book names. So far I'm going to be using (deep breath):

Austin, Bowkett, Bagley, Brewster, Brattel, Butler, Brown, Braybrook, Bentley, Carter, Cumming, Crow, Cecco, Cooke, Croucher, Drummond, Daglish, Evans, Follis, Galway, Garcia, Gibson, Hollis, Hubbard, Hare, Jangeborg, Jones, Kerry, Lever, Liepa, McNeill, Mitchell, Megler, Minter, Marsden, O'Connor, Oliver, Priestley, Phillips, Panayi, Pickford, Ritman, Robinson, Reidy, Rainbird, Sinclair, Smith, Singleton, Stamper, Sievey, Turner, Townsend, Toms, Tang, Urquhart, White, Whittaker, Westcott, Yates

Are there any glaringly obvious omissions? Is your favourite programmer not there? I'm not sure how many names I'll include, I'll probably start with about a hundred but this could expand depending on how much memory is available once the main game is done. I can easily fill out the list with the names of my non-computer friends but would kind of like them all to have at least some tangential relation to our favourite computer.

Both Cooke and Smith are in your list, so I’m good.

But you can add Follin, Bruty, and Perry.

Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2019 7:04 pm Both Cooke and Smith are in your list, so I’m good.

But you can add Follin, Bruty, and Perry.

Done! I shouldn't have missed those. Any more would be much appreciated!

I would add some of the people who created the speccy -

Dickinson
Altwasser
Vickers, harshly awarded “Most incomprehensible” user manual of 1982
Gordon

If 'tangential' counts, then how about Braben and Bell? or are they/Elite more associated with the Beeb?
EDIT: Also, Everiss(Bruce), Ward (David), Cousens(Rod), Pape(Bob), Darling(Brothers), Lamb(Mike), Owens(Paul)..

You must include some foreign surnames (I only see Garcia and Jangeborg) as there's no prestigious league (at least in football) without foreign players

Ruiz
Menendez
Granados
Rada
Delcan
Salgueiro

... and what about Sugar? ...

The late Steve Cain and Ian Weatherburn of Imagine.

Graeme Baird of Realtime

Mervyn J. Estcourt (Deathchase)

Mike A. Richardson (Durell)

Thanks everyone, some great suggestions here.

Turtle_Quality wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2019 7:43 pm I would add some of the people who created the speccy...

Done!

DouglasReynholm wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2019 7:55 pm If 'tangential' counts, then how about Braben and Bell? or are they/Elite more associated with the Beeb?

Oh absolutely, I already had a couple of C64 programmers. I've put the rest of your suggestions in too, the more the merrier!

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2019 11:53 pm You must include some foreign surnames (I only see Garcia and Jangeborg) as there's no prestigious league (at least in football) without foreign players

These are especially great, thanks Juan! I've been really struggling for non-Anglophone names and as the game is supposed to be international, I really need a lot more. I'll throw Sugar into the mix too even though he's a [censored] [censored] who [censored] with [censored] [censored], and also a [censored] and a complete [censored].

Evil Genius wrote: ↑Sun Aug 11, 2019 4:03 am ...Cain...Weatherburn... Baird...Estcourt...Richardson

I'll have Cain, Baird and Estcourt but Weatherburn and Richardson will have to wait for now (too long). I'm keeping them all to a maximum of nine characters, partly for memory reasons but mainly for display reasons. Could change that, though, early days yet.

Not that it's particularly important, I still have nothing for N (surprisingly) or I, Q, X or Z (unsurprisingly). Not much bothered about the latter four but would like a couple of Ns.

From the Wally Week saga I'm missing Hinsley & Strudwick.

We can also include artists like Thorpe, Wakelin, Azpiri, Delcan & Royo (another three foreign! ), Frey, Rowe and Lund.

If you want an exotic touch to your league, add Miyamoto to the list!

Maybe not Spectrum-specific, but he was inspiration to so many Kong clones.

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 9:39 pm From the Wally Week saga I'm missing Hinsley & Strudwick.

We can also include artists like Thorpe, Wakelin, Azpiri, Delcan & Royo (another three foreign! ), Frey, Rowe and Lund.

Excellent! Think I've got 95 now, so probably enough to get going (although I've not worked out exactly how everything's going to work just yet and I like to plan everything to the nth degree before I start actually writing anything). But any more names (especially non-English) would still be welcome, I can always swap things in and out (or expand).

P.S. Have added Ramirez and Saukas anyway (will take them out on request of course).

Ok, no problem.

I want to finish the season as top scorer!

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:32 pm Ok, no problem.

I want to finish the season as top scorer!

I'm still considering how it's all going to work. Normally I'd save a bit of memory by having the initial competitors pre-defined, but as new competitors are going to have to be generated as the game progresses, I thought I might as well have everything randomly generated from the start, since the data to do so is going to have to be there anyway. So I can't guarantee anything I'm afraid