Can you change colonists profession names in game?

[greggbert]

The "old profession" names of the colonsts are very prominent on the UI, appearing in every single UI Screen and are totally useless in game.  Is there a way in game to change this to something useful? 

I'm sick of having colonsts with names like "Tailor 1, Scared Child"  or "Doctor 2, Sheriff".
It's stupid and it breaks the immersion.

I'd really like to keep the name and change the profession
Instead of "Tailor 1, Scared Child" Why can't we have have "Jax, Tailor 1"
Instead of Doctor 2, Sheriff, why can't we have "Comba, Doctor 2"

So is there a way to do this without mods and why would this usless background info be so prominent in the UI if you can't change it?

[Canute]

You just can name them like you suggest.
But that the profession appear at the name/UI is allready a mod, at the vanila gameplay it don't appear.
You only see "Tailor 1" and not "Tailor 1, Scared Child".
So you should mention this at the proper mod topic.
Or just throw out that mod, and rename the pawn at the way you like.

[Wanderer_joins]

Not in vanilla

Is there a way in game to change this to something useful? 

As always, there is a mod for that. You can edit it with editable pawn titles by Rainbow Flambe

[Syrchalis]

Alternatively you can use https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1084452457

This mod allows you to change nearly everything about the game - but the main feature is that you can let your pawns earn points through actions (depending on how you set it up, default is time spent in the colony and kills/operations received/prisoners recruited). With those points you can give pawns passions, traits and of course you can edit their backstories as well.

Obviously the titles mod (which I also use) is far superior if you JUST want to edit the profession title of your pawns, but if you want to edit their backstory while the game is running and you don't want to edit the savefile, the above mod allows you to do that.