SimPE changed names of Sims when...

I hope this is the right forum to post this question.

Background: Using two HP desktops; old one had Windows 7, new one has Windows 10. Installed the same SimPE version on the new one also. Have all games and EP's thru MG. Got the game running well.

Problem: I copied one of my Neighborhoods from my old computer to my new one. Everything looked good, except the most of the names for my families were changed. I looked in SimPE and except for some of the names of babies, the new names assigned were so random that males now had girl names and vice versa. Otherwise everything else appeared as I left it. In SimPE, I changed the name back to the original one and it's okay now.

Note: Using the exact same custom cc and hacks in the new game as the old one.

Goal: I don't plan on playing this neighborhood anymore and only wanted to move out many of my families to the SimBin so I can then upload the houses, community lots and businesses (after having the Sim close the business) to use those buildings again in another new neighborhood.

But I'm curious why this happened so I can avoid it if I do a future copy & paste. Any ideas?

Thanks.

Hello again, @Vita,

I'm not sure that this is exactly a modding question, but here on Leefish we do not actually have a General Help section for our favorite game. So the forum is just fine, dear.

I have no clue how this could happen. I've moved my games a few times, but I've never seen anything like this. As such, I cannot say why it happened, or how it could be prevented in the future. Although.... maybe there is something:
After moving/copying the files, did you start the game first? Or did you go right into SimPE? Because I think that there is a possibility that if you had opened the game first, the names might still have been the same. Also, did you include ALL the files from the Neighborhoods folder, including the NeighborhoodManager.package ??? Leaving that out can be a life changing experience.
Maybe it's just a fortunate coïncidence that you're not needing any of these sims anymore.

By "upload the houses and community lots and businesses", I suppose you mean just "save them to the lots and houses bin"? Because the way they are now, after having been played, they would probably need a very thorough clean-up before they're aver ready to be uploaded anywhere. Actually, even for your own use in other neighborhoods, by new and/or different sims, I would still advise cleaning the lots up. And I advise you to ask around at MTS about how to go about this cleaning up.

Good luck with your mission, Vita.

I've read this happens if the two games are installed as different languages.

@HugeLunatic, THAT thought would never occur to me, but you are right, of course!

Sometimes I forget that we're not all speaking/writing/playing the same language. I've always found Dutch translations to be so horribly poor and stupidly executed, that I flat out refuse to install any program, including games, in Dutch. I will always choose the English install, as if it was my native language. But this is of course not true for everyone. And playing the game in different languages across systems will most certainly have its consequences for naming sims!

However, I do not see how that should apply to playable sims, unless they're the Maxis originals. Any sim that was given a name by the player, should keep their name.
And there may be exceptions for sims that were generated and randomly named after installing my "Names" mod (or another mod of that type), too! Because as an easy way to increase variety, I've made all names - regardless of their originating language - accessible to all language versions of the game.

This started happening to me after I reinstalled the game using osab's version. Everyone's names are eastern European now, lol.