Rimworld is all about creating the colony of your dreams. You can build up a group of whichever colonists you wish. You can even decide which skills they will build up through jobs and tasks. Another great aspect about Rimworld is the ability to name and rename colonists in the game.
This guide will show you how to name your colonists before starting the game, rename them after the game is in progress and even how to rename animals apart of the colony. No longer will you be stuck with names like Gnar Jaguar. You can rename colonists in the Vanilla game of Rimworld so no mods will be required.
Setting Up A New Colony and Dishing Out Names
When you are starting a new game you will have the option to be able to decide on all of your colonist’s names. After you get through the location where you colony will settle and the other game difficult options, you will have the option to choose your colonists. Whilst you can’t manually select traits and skills, you can name each colonist whatever you wish. To do that, change the names in the text box of this screen as shown in the image below.
At the top of the screen you can see three separate text boxes. The first box is this character’s first name. The second box is the nickname for the character and the last box is this character’s surname. Some characters will have family members that are also apart of this screen. Even if you change the last name of the colonist, their relation with other colonists will remain the same.
Once you are happy with the names of your colonists, you can move on by pressing the Start button at the bottom right of this screen.
How to Change a Colonist’s Name In-Game
If you would like to rename characters from an existing save game, luckily you are also able to do this in Rimworld. First, find the colonist you would like to rename and select them. You can use the Left mouse button to do this. A small box will open up with some information on this character.
Once you have this open you need to press the small i symbol at the top left of this screen. Check out the image below to see where this is. Once you have selected this a larger information panel will appear with even more information on the character. Here you can see things like diet and damage stats but more importantly you can change the character’s name.
Navigate to the Bio tab from this menu and you will see their stats and name. You will see near the top of this screen some small buttons. There is one button for banishing the colonist from the colony and one button to rename the character. The one to rename the character is the small button which looks like a text box, shown in the image below.
Selecting this button will bring up a menu with two text boxes. Here you can change the Nickname of the colonist and give them a title. As you can see in the image above, my colonist has the nickname Fringe and the title of a priest. This title is based on their past and their skillset. You can change the title to whatever you wish. If you have a colonist as a cleaner for example, you can change it to janitor.
How to Change an Animal’s Name in Rimworld
Now that we know how to change a colonist name in Rimworld we can move on to changing animal’s names. Funnily enough the button to change an animals name is not in the same place as a colonist. To change an animal’s name, select the animal.
With the animal selected, open up the Training tab from their little menu on the bottom left. Now that you have this open, you can find the button to change their name at the top of the training menu.
As animals do not have any titles in Rimworld, you can only change their names and there is only one text box. Type whatever name you wish for the animal and then press the OK button to change their name. You will see a message appear at the top of the screen informing you that you have changed the animal’s name.