I use the names of Gods from various mythologies. I"m using alot of Welsh god names at the moment. Of course I try to match them up. Gods of war/hunt/underworld are my fleet ships and fighters. Then other things dealing with more worldly items are colony ships. My scout ship is named Syn after the Norse god of watchfulness and truth. they all match up as best I can get them. I pulled names from Norse, Irish Celtic, Welsh, Celtic, and some greek and roman gods. Also a few names from Japanese Mythology

Some current names:
Fighter - Oro
Frigate - Athena
Cruiser - Gwynn Ap Nudd
Battleship - Hachiman
Colony - Amaethon

Actually for my constructors and troop transports I"m using the Sattelite of Love from MST3K so it is named the SOL


I have many more names then ships, but I"m working on that.

I name individual ship hulls in the following manner,
Tiny Hulls
VFB – Fighter, laser weapon
VFM – Fighter, missile
VFG – Fighter, gun
VFR – Scout

Small Hulls
FFB – Frigate, laser
FFM – Frigate, missile
FFG – Frigate, gun
FFR – Frigate, scout

Medium Hulls
DDB – Destroyer, laser
DDM – Destroyer, missile
DDG – Destroyer, gun

Large Hulls
CAB – Cruiser, laser
CAM – Cruiser, missile
CAG – Cruiser, gun

Huge Hulls
BBB – Battleship, laser
BBM – Battleship, missile
BBG – Battleship, gun

Troop Ships

TRC – Transport, combat

Mining Ships
AMS – Asteroid mining ship

Freighters
MS – Merchant Ship

For ships with out engines I name them SDB (System Defense Boat) a frigate therefore would be FFSDB. Whenever a basic model receives an upgrade I add Mk II for the second increase ect.

I only name frigates and larger ships that achieve a level of experience. I name frigates after famous naval ships like Essex or I use British ship names like Alacrity. Destroyers get city names. Cruisers get country names (Canada, Argentina, ect.) or British ship names. Battleships get famous battleship names (Yamato, New Jersey, Bismarck, ect.) Scout ships get famous explorer names, (Columbus, De Gamma, ect.) For freighters I use economic names, (Enterprise, Capitalist, ect.) For mining ships I use mountain ranges, (Rocky, Urals, Sierra Nevada, ect.) I name transports after famous Marines or amphibious invasions, (Chesty Puller, Tarawa, ect.) To avoid naming problems I am making an Excel file that lists if the name is currently in use and how many times a ship with that name has been destroyed. It also gives me a list of names when I am having a problem remembering names that I like.

I have used this:
tiny:
FTR Name (fighter) or
INT Name (interceptor, trades fighting power with increased speed)
small:
CRV Name (Corvette, if it looks small, purely depending on visual impression) or
DST Name (Destroyer, if it doesn't look too small) or
FRG Name (Frigate, same as above but more intended to escort Transports and stuff)
medium:
CRS Name (cruiser)
Haven't really used larger ships since I switched to this way.

+ All ships of same type is located near each other
- Can't think of anything negative with this

Examples:
FTR SF-10 Wasp
DST Badger
DST Acerthas
CRS Hathos
CRS Kishima
CRS Akiriin

I usually start off with an abbreviated version of the empire's name (ie: Krynn Consulate=KC, Drath Legion=DL), and then an abbreviation of the ship's class:
Cargo
colony-Cc
constructor-Ct
freighter-Fr
miner-M
transport-Tt
sensor (cargo)-Ss

Tiny
scout-S
fighter-F

Small
corvette-Cv
heavy fighter-hF

Medium
destroyer-D
frigate-Fg

Large
cruiser-Cr
battleship-Bt

Huge
heavy cruiser/battlecruiser-hC/bC
dreadnaught-Dr
juggernaut-J

etc., etc...

if the ship has a particular role like an escort or defender or something, i'll put another letter before the hull designation (ie: eCr)

After the hull designation I usually put what version it is and a name that corresponds to the race (Drath-Egyptian Gods, Thalan-insects, Altarian-birds, etc.)

So for example, a Drengin late game border patrol fighter would be named as such:

DEbF-07 Scourge

Sometimes if i'm not feeling lazy, then i'll post the stats in the description.

I love the shipbuilder - naming and adding class descriptions is a great example of a relatively cheap feature that makes a good feature like the shipbuilder GREAT!

Early in the game - I don't usually build many offensive ships - should a war arise, my ships are usually named after the race they'll be sent into battle against (Korx-busters, etc). Until I settle in military technology wise -- only colony, survey and constructor ships get class names. I don't do "class upgrades" that is, each tech-tiered ship gets its own class name.

For constructors, I use class names like DaVinci and Edison.

For colony ships - Mayflower, Sooner, Pilgrim.

For survey ships - Hawking, Galileo, Copernicus.

For freighters - famous sci-smuggling ships... Firefly, Millenium Falcon, etc.

Later in the game - I go all over the scifi map, usually in groups (i.e., 1 missile-focused, 1 laser-focused, 1 railgun focused for each size).

For instance - a huge class might have 3 ship types: Deadalus, Odyssey, Prometheus. Or Sovereign, Galaxy, Defiant. Or Aurora, Orion, etc. Or Galactica, Mercury, etc. I also dip into Greek gods (usually have a trio around Apollo, Archimedes, Zeus), as well as a fondness for Royal Navy naming conventions (Colossus, Neptune, Majestic). Famous admirals/generals (Eisenhower, Perry, Nelson), famous battles (Trafalgar, Midway, etc) also get used. Troop Transports always get names like Normandy, Iwo Jima, Tripoli.


I play long games on big maps - and will even try to wait with serious classifications until I'm tech'ed out... by which time, I'm sometimes creating 40 or more classifications. I'll create special planet defense ship classes (no engines), special escort ship classes (fast, defense-intensive ships), classes specifically designed for starbases defense.

I'll generally take names from various other science fiction that are appropriate. I usually play as the Terran Alliance, and there are plenty for them, but little for other races. For them I'll use various appropriate words (possibly appropriating the name of their starting planet/star for the largest ships). The name has to fit the race's ethical leanings; the Altarians using Dominator transports or Drengin with Liberators doesn't feel right.

I generally use a prefix from the name of the race, and the first ship of a class has that ship's name. For the Terrans I'll get something like TAS Intrepid, and Altarians may have ARS Paragon (hey, Republic and Resistance start with the same letter! Intentional or coincidence?). I just recently played as the Iconians, and used generally the same 'good-race' names with their fitting prefix, which is IRS (yes, like the US tax service). Now that I think about it, the Korath Clan and Krynn Consulate would both be KCS.

I just started a game as the Yor, and I use basic, descriptive names for them because I feel that it's appropriate (since they're a bunch of robots, after all), as opposed to the 'evil' names they'd otherwise get. I generally use those in the campaign as the Drengin, along with a couple from the plot (pretty much just Kona and Vire) and some Kilrathi names (Wing Commander series). I used an IDS prefix for them (Imperial Drengin Starship), because I thought it looked better than DES.

One last thing: if I give a ship to another race, I rename it to suit them, for two reasons:
1. It fits them better and doesn't seem like it should cast suspicion on me (if I see the Terrans with an 'Altarian Frigate M3-1', it's obvious who it came from, but the AI doesn't seem to think anything of it).
2. I know which ships to give them in the diplomacy screen (since they won't be willing to let me have my new top-of-the-line battleship back if I accidentally give it to them).

BTW -- if it's 'inspiration' anyone's looking for...

I'll toss a couple links your way from the ever-valuable, even in the most suprising of ways wikipedia.... When I'm feeling really ambitious in naming ship classes, I'll actually sketch on pad/paper or in Excel all the classes, types, and names - and invariably, spend 45 minutes cruising through wikipedia for names.

Here's a list of all Star Trek ship classes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_class

Or - a list of famous scifi starships:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_spaceships
or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship

...and like I said - I don't think one can beat the Brits naming schemas... here's a list of every RN ship ever - some great class names just waiting to be lifted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Navy_ship_names

My ships currently follow this convention for offensive ships:

Game Size-Weapons-Defenses Version

eg. G5 M-B-S 1 (First medium ship with beams and shields in game 5)
eg. G5 L-BM-SA 1 (First large ship with beams, mass drivers, shields and armor in game 5)

As I save the models to the hard drive, the unique game indicator groups them all together.

For ships like faster transports or freighters, I just have some variants like Transport 4.

Wow, I laughed until I stopped

Jpinard - I don't keep my non-template ships. I acutally have the game set to not save my ship designs. Templates I do save, as I seem to develope a "style" in the cources of my games (Very organic ships vs Very angular ships).

And I honestly didn't think of this, but while I don't exactly have much of a Ship naming system, I do have a fleet naming system.

I name my fleets for the geographic area that they are charged with covering (think zone defense/offense).

Southern Fleet, North Western fleet (south of my empire, North West of my Empire)
Fleets designed for invasion are named Stryker.

This way, at a glance, I can evaluate my tactical situation and determine where there are holes in my empire that enemies could slip through

I play as a custom Atlantians race and base my whole scheme on a rough neutral sea race concept. All my ships are then named after sea creatures and similar, varying from real to fictional. Examples:

King Shrimp: Medium Fighter
Tropical Minnow: Long-range Scout
Jellyfish: Large Troop Transport
Water Maiden: Trade Ship
Colony Bubble: Quick Cheap Colony
Seahorse: Battleship

As for exceptions, I once created a ship called the Ancient Protector, after the Night Elf building in Warcraft III, to save me from near extinction. That worked very well. (It was my own fault I was near dead.) Near the end of my games, I may use the rare name of my favorite animal, The Squid, which I keep for the toughest, strongest, fastest ships I've got.

I always name all of my ships with the exception of fighters, colony ships, etc. It just seems to make the game more enjoyable. When I design a new ship whatever name I decide will be given to the first one built becomes the name of the class (obviously this is done in advance) Each ship is also given a designation which helps me determine the class just by looking at the name. Here's an example.

ISS Voyager HD-05 The HD stands for Hyrule Destroyer since the name the class is Hyrule. The H was added to the front of the D because I was already using that by my first destroyer design the Reliant Class. The 05 means it was the 5th ship of that class built. Ironically this particular ship was sent to the opposite corner of the galaxy on a huge map, but unlike its t.v. counter part it never made it home...no good Yor.

Thanks to my addiction to Anime and The History Channel I don't seem to run out of names but if I do find myself having a brain fart I just recycle the name of ship that was destroyed or decommisioned. I already have plans to name one of my new Bizmark class cruisers the ISS Voyager, but this one won't have a survey module. If you have any questions about my naming methods just ask.

Here's a DOD link for hull classification symbols that might be useful

http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/s_type.htm