Naming your ships

[ErevanGaming]

Hi everybody,

I just recently wondered how do you name your ships, vessels, rovers, bases, drones, etc? Do you follow your own guidelines/naming conventions or base it on a real-life system of sorts? In my career save game, I use mostly Greek gods/goddesses names (like Aether OCC-01 Orbital Cargo Carrier, Gorgyra RFT-03 Resupply Fuel Tanker and Nereus SSC-02 Space Station Core).

Regards and thanks in advance for sharing =)

[MiffedStarfish]

I designate all my ships with the prefix "F-Tech" so I know which ships are mine and which are others, followed by some letters denoting its use, for example all my first gen warships used "EX-" followed by a number showing that it was the nth one of its type I built, followed by a name. (usually a figure in Greek mythology)

[MaxxQ]

Heh... I recently had the song Iago's Demise by Faith and the Muse playing while I was looking through the forums here.  The song goes through a short list of Shakespearean play female character names (about 10, out of somewhere around 150 or so), and I thought, "Some of those names are pretty cool."  So I looked up a list of female characters in ol' Bill's plays, and wrote a bunch of them down.  

I also have the mod, Launch Numbering, which automatically adds a number after the first launch of a given ship.  If it's still the same ship, but maybe has a different payload, or added SRBs, or any other change, no matter how minor, it will add a "Bloc" number as well.

For example, I have a launch vehicle named Ophelia.  I launch it once, and it stays Ophelia.  If I launch a second one that's exactly the same, the name shows up as Ophelia 2.  If I add SRBs to the original, then it gets renamed to Ophelia (Bloc II), and a second launch of that craft is named Ophelia 2 (Bloc II).

 

[The Aziz]

I have huge problems with that. Except for stations, bases and interplanetary motherships (since they mostly use new, untested rockets to get in place) most of my vessels have the same name, only with different version (MkX). And long story short, after four in-game years I have tons of satellites in different places that are called exactly the same since I used the same rocket to launch them.

[*Asterix*]

Most of my ships have names from the usual nerdy science books and movies; Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Hitchhikers Guide.  Sometimes I'll use military alphabet to name individual fighter squads.  Other than that, I just try to think of cool sounding, original names.

[Xavven]

I use plants, animals, and elements from the periodic table. E.g. Ivy, Polar Bear, Lithium.

[linuxgurugamer]

There's also the mod called champagne bottle which creates random nice sounding names

[kraden]

I like having a theme, but I saw lots of people doing gods and goddesses for names so I didn't want to follow suit. I was born and raised in Alaska and decided yo use Alaska themed names.  As such, my boosters are named after mountains, ships are named after towns, stations are named after rivers, bases are named after lakes, landers are named after animals. Relays and probes are random other things.

[NSEP]

Thats really complicated with me, whenever its something unrealistic and fun, it has a funny name like 'zoomidyzoomzoomzipper' and when its realistic and a close to real life concept its an Acronym. I also add in 'Redux' when i make a replica.

[septemberWaves]

Naming launch vehicles is often quite fun. Sometimes I go with a simple numbering system, other times I use a several-digit classification (like the real Atlas V) to indicate various details about the rocket variant (such as number of boosters, number of upper stage engines or length of upper stage, number of first stage engines, fairing size, or similar parameters). The actual word I use to name the vehicles can vary greatly and it's usually not linked to anything in particular but often follows a similar theme (my current in-development launch vehicles are all named after various metals).

[Curveball Anders]

I a boring nerd with borderline OCD so all my designs are named for what they are supposed to do, often followed with a number indicating design iteration.

So rarely anything more exciting than "Duna Science Express Orbiter One"

Well, actually my 'Soyus' to get kerbals on and off Kerbin station(s) is actually name "Up Down Taxi", my shuttle to carry kerbals between stations is calles "Space Bus" and my standard resupply ships are all called "Progres <ev. extra data>".

 

[Hotaru]

My current scheme is, kermanned missions get names related to bravery and/or recklessness (Audacity, Intrepidity, Daring) while unkermanned ones get names related to caution and/or cowardice (Rationality, Timidity, Sanity). Static stations and bases get long spans of time (Patience, Persistence, Immutability), mobile ones--which in practice so far means kermanned rovers--get short spans of time (Brevity, Transience). Launch vehicles, because I couldn't think of anything clever, get made-up words from "Jabberwocky" (Uffish, Manxome, Vorpal) followed by roman numerals for variants.

[Kerbal pancake]

I name them after communists

[CaptainTrebor]

My major rocket designs are named after letters in the phonetic alphabet (e.g. Alpha) followed by a Roman numeral number (e.g. III), which states which iteration of the rocket, followed by a letter designation (e.g. SR). Under my naming system the Alpha III SR would mean the "Station resupply version of the third iteration of the Alpha rocket".

 

Spoiler

Although this could never happen because the Alpha IIIs are unmanned interplanetary probes. Fun little fact for you all. 

 

[suicidejunkie]

I used to name my ships, but almost all of them are now called "Munbase Alpha Ship" or "Minmus Refinery Ship" and I have given up fighting that.

[HlynkaCG]

My names for ship and mission designs are generally a mix of functional description, and references to a real world equivalents. For instance, the craft file for my standard early-career LKO rocket with Mk1 command pod is named Moho Space Capsule after the Mercury program, and my Sailor series of orbital probes is a reference to the Mariner Program. Spacecraft launched for a specific contract in career mode get the contractor's name plus an alphanumeric designation such as Rockomax Alpha or STRUCTO 1, and subassemblies get cheeky acronyms like B.D.S.M. for "Big Damn Service Module"

[Slam_Jones]

I've gone through a lot of phases - including Greek God names as mentioned in OP, Roman Emperor names, all sorts of naming schemes.

Lately I've been going very literal -- i.e. "Station Core I," or "Habitat/Science Module," etc.

[joacobanfield]

Pretty much anything, gods, goddesses, moons, historical figures, older missions from another save, fictional characters...usually related to their objective. (Example: The Tricorder series of scanner satellites)

 

Altough I remember a "Proboproproproprobe", too.

[MR L A]

Well, I use rocket/shuttle family names like the following "Balthasar LS1-3" - 1.25m designs, one through three, each increasing in capability. "Centurion LS1-4" - 2.5m designs, one through three or four, again increasing in capability, "Delta Series" - a collection of shuttles and TSTO spaceplanes also given individual names like "Delta Series - 'Genesis'". Other assorted things are often given something like the following "Module - CM Daytona" (command module) or "Probe - Sentinel". For new craft, experimental or ones that overlap with other designs I use the "Gen2 -" prefix  sometimes if they are a modified or experimental version of an existing vehicle I may use something like "BLSX" which would be Balthasar Launch System X.

A planned launch of a Centurion LS2 with the third probe to the Duna system would probably be saved as "A1-CLS2-D3" A1 < next planned launch, followed by A2 etc if I have a few planned. CLS2 < Centurion Launch System 2, the vehicle used. D3 < Duna 3, or third mission to Duna.

[ErevanGaming]

Wow, thanks for all your posts guys, sure appreciate what you've shared here =)

[RobFalcon]

My plan for my 1.3 playthrough:

Launch Vehicles: Stars, with roman numerals for variants.
Kermanned Missions: Greek Titans + #
Communications Satellites: Hermes + Destination and #
Probes: Greek Winds ( Boreas, Notus, Eurus, Zephyrus ) and #, name depending on if its a flyby, orbiter, or lander.  (Figuring out a fourth....  Impactor?  )
Bases: ....  Not sure yet.  Haven't gotten far enough into a playthrough to figure that out.  Will update once I've got something.

[regex]

10 hours ago, suicidejunkie said:

I used to name my ships, but almost all of them are now called "Munbase Alpha Ship" or "Minmus Refinery Ship" and I have given up fighting that.

This is me exactly except when I'm making an actual RO replica. Sometimes I get fanciful but my names are almost always some variation of "Crew Shuttle" and "Duna Tug".

Edited August 22, 2017 by regex

[suicidejunkie]

13 hours ago, regex said:

This is me exactly except when I'm making an actual RO replica. Sometimes I get fanciful but my names are almost always some variation of "Crew Shuttle" and "Duna Tug".

To be clear, my vehicle might be named Engineer Training Bus on launch, but two weeks later it will be auto-renamed to Minmus Fuel Depot Ship, just like every other craft that has visited the Minmus Fuel Depot.

[nascarlaser1]

I name them for their purpose only. So like, orbiter rocket, mun rover, ect.

[p1t1o]

I use a generator loaded with my favorite buzzwords:

LaserBlade Dx-9000 Mark IX Exa-Module

FireHawkBoosterFlame ZX-52alpha

 

Just kidding, I just use things like:

MunLander III

DunaRover VI