The UK/Ireland file has been updated with some more names (espcially Scottish names). And the Nordic file is now available (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland). You can expect more of these files in the coming weeks. Downloadable at the bottom of the post.
FAQ What do these files contain?
These are EDT-files that contain numerous command lines with names of players that will appear as regens(or FREDs as they are being refered to nowadays) in a later stage of the game.
Could you give us an example of those command lines?
Why yes I can. These are five random command lines from the UK/Ireland file:
"FUTURE_REGEN" "Brody" "" "Harrigan" "14.05.1999" "England" "Leeds United"
"FUTURE_REGEN" "Travis" "" "Elwine" "11.05.2005" "England" "Wolverhampton Wanderers"
"FUTURE_REGEN" "Tom" "" "Dallaway" "25.08.2001" "England" "Blackburn Rovers"
"FUTURE_REGEN" "Jude" "" "Prestwood" "01.06.2000" "England" "Sampdoria"
"FUTURE_REGEN" "Kieran" "" "Swarbrick" "02.11.2004" "England" "Northampton Town"
What was your motivation for creating those files?
Because I like FM to be as realistic as possible I am sometimes displeased with the names of the regens appearing. As we all know certain names define certain generations. Although that depends on which country you live, because more traditional countries tend to give their children more traditional names. In Belgium the most popular names are 1/Noa(h) 2/ Thomas 3/ Lucas 4/ Milan. I have never seen the name Noah as a regen name for a Belgian player. The most frequent regens names are: Jan, Dirk, Marc, Luc,... but those are names given to children about 40-60 years ago. It's ok for a coach name or something, but it's totally unrealistic seeing these names appear for a 14 year old. And the surnames remain the same over the years of course, but the same common names are appearing too often.
How do you select the first names of the future regens? What are your selection criteria?
1. On the internet you can find many sites that give you a rundown on the top 100/200/1000 baby names of a specific country. Those are the names that were being used. Jack is the most popular baby name in the UK at the moment, so that is the most frequent name in the british EDT-file (22x). Other frequent names are Joshua, Thomas, Liam, Ethan, Matthew, ... There are also names I've used only once or twice, for example: Devlin, Marvin, Anton, Darcy, Enrico, Trent, Linus, ... I've also included some names that don't sound British at all, but only occasionaly.
2. I didn't use names like David, Robert, John, Georghe or Paul for a rather obvious reason: They already appear abundantly as a regen name, created by the game itself. However I did use names like James, Joseph or Daniel, because, despite being rather traditional names, they are still popular babynames anno 2006 and because sometimes it's better to combine a more traditional first name with a more uncommon surmane.
How do you select the surnames of the future regens?
Their are numerous websites that list databases of surnames for a specific country. That's where I get the names from. I'm not specifically looking for the most uncommon names, I also use more common names like Simpson, Thompson, King, Richardson, but always in combination with a more uncommon first name.
Will these names replace all the names that are usually being created by the game?
No not at all. Only a small portion of the names listed in the EDT-files will appear in your game. Especially if you select a league as 'playable' there will still be a lot of regens in the game that are not being taken from these EDT files. To give you an idea: Of the 2000+ names in the British file only 315 were in the game after 8 years. So there are about 40 regen names being taken from a file per year. At least during my test, with Premiership and Championship selected.
I am convinced though that there must be a way to make more of these future regens appear, but I have no idea how. If someone else knows of an obscure backdoor possibility to make more of these names appear, please be kind enough to share your knowledge.
Where do I store these files?
Football Manager 2007/data/db/701/edt
I've edited the database, will this still work?
Yes, but you'll have to store these files with your edited database. By default your edited database is being stored here (at least on my pc):
My Documents/Sports interactive/Football Manager 2007/db/insert name created database
Can I store multiple files and still expect this to work?
Yes
Do these regens appear with the birthday specified in the command lines?
Not exactly. Their birthday and birth month will be the same, but for some reason upon regeneration the game chooses a random birth year for the regen. So if you specified 7.4.1995 as a birthyear, the regen may as well appear with 7.4.1990 as a birth year. I think this is a good thing though, because it makes that different regens appear first if you start a different games.
Have the names being given by the community also been added to these files?
Most of them. If you've given me names like Paul Moore or David Smith, don't expect to find them in the EDT-file, the game already creates enough of these names by itself.
Do I have to start a new game for this to take effect or is it save game compatible?
You'll have to start a new game.
Credits
Soul_linneus (original idea, researching names),
Sijnh (researching names, creating the files)
Nerazzurri (hosting the files, EDT-generator)
Goal Scorer (researching the Finnish names)
Everyone who added names on the forum, thanks a lot.
EDT-files: UK and Ireland: download
here (+ 3500 names)
UPDATED Holland: download
here (+ 6500 names)
Nordic: download
here (+5500 names from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark)
NEW It would be nice to get some user feedback. We're specifically interested in knowing how many regens appear per year, per country, in playable/non-playable leagues. Also, if you know a way to make more of these future regens appear, let us know. 
EDT-name-files for future regens: update 29 dec 
:thup:
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