Here is my nomenclature system:

First letter for Race: T for Terrans
Next letter Size of Hull: M for medium
Next Letter Type of Weaponry

Example: T MBeam, would mean terran med beam ship.


Simple and easy. I just keep ugrading the same ones as I get signficant weps and tech upgrades.

Colony Ship MK I, Colony Ship MK II, Constructor MK I, Constructor MK II etc...

As Humans I'll use stuff like:

Colony 13 (13 pc)
Missileboat 8 (missiles, 8pc)
late game: Battleship 25 b-m-md (25pc beams-missiles-mass drivers)

If I'm playing an Evil-custom race , I use more right-brain and terrifying names:

Pest 9 b (small 9pc beams)
Agonizer 15 md (medium 15 pc nano ripper)
Soul Reaper 31 b (huge 31 doom ray x 4)

-just as some generall examples.

AngleWyrm- 1hp? Cool ship, but putting weaps on a cargo hull is an old schoolboy error. I did it for my first few games and couldn't work it out...

Well since they don't have weapons I seem to be doing ok with it.

I use stuff like Bugger for my fast strike ships or wasp for fighters. I also have T1 Z-Wing.
I have some nice base ships that i don't deleat evry game.

@TyrGodOfWar:
Ok, I'll bite: What's a base ship?


Engines take up way too much space anyway...

after going crazy trying to find ships, i went with a numbers based set up

00-aa-mm-dd where aa = attack, mm is move and dd is defense - doesnt take into account types of attack/defense, but still allow's for a name (nemisis/dragoon/banshee etc)

from there, diferant ship types get a differant number set, so my attack ships are always "on top" of the list

02-mm-rr (move/range) are transports

03-mm-rr are constructors and so on

typical beginning attack ship would end up looking like this:

00-05-07-01 Wasp

Only problem being, you end up with a bit less room for the acctual "name" part of the tag - not enough room allowed for anything really involved. Ship sizes i dont bother adding to the nomenclature by virtue of the names for each pre-designed hull type pretty much stay the same.

Jeesh! I'm sorry dudes, but where's the creativity in some of your naming conventions? I'm not trying to be a snob, but honstly, how badass does LargePlasmaSpeed3 (just as an example) sound?

These are a few of my favorite ship class names, associated with their hull size and role.

SF-16 Hammerhead: Tiny strike fighter with high speed and mass driver weapons. Swept forward wings and two canard tip on the front of the fuselage.

Tsunami-class: Large battleship with straight, clean lines, a sleek forward-swept command center (topped with a sensor module) and a few panel towards the front where the Phasors and Harpoon missiles fire from.

Lucas-class: Okay, basically what we have here is a made-from-scratch, no mod included, Star Destroyer. Features about eight Laser V's and one Stinger IV.

I usually go with something that has to do with the ship's purpose, or that I find amusing. For instance, if I am fighting the Drengin, I'll have the Drengin Eater, Fur Bait, Monkey Effer... something along those lines. Similarly, for the Yor: Yor Mama, In Yor Face, etc. I also like to name them things that make sense when the news bulletin comes up, like "Drath kick in the nards has defeated Korx fleet 258."

Hmm, maybe I get a little too into this game...

Since I last posted, I have come up with a list of classes to help me name ships. It is incomplete, but I hope to change that soon. (With your help, maybe?) In additon, I use other things to help me. When playing as the Terrans, my ships begin with TAS (Terran Aliance Ship. I got this from the campaign.) I also add some other part that I just made up 5 seconds ago. I never have a "Bomber." Instear, I have a "TAS Rail Bomber MK I"''

Anyway, here is the list:


Galactic Civilization II Ship Class


Battleship - A large capital ship with a very high defense value.

Battle Cruiser - A large ship with high attack and minimum defense.

Bomber - A tiny or small ship armed with mass drivers.

Capital Ship - The general term for medium + ships. Often have a high attack and defense. Usually expensive, so it is a good idea to protect with cheaper escorts. Must have a lower value than the escorts. (Attack / [Defense + Hit Points])

Colony Ship - Cargo ship that can colonize unclaimed worlds and move population between worlds. Should be designed to either have a high speed or a long range.

Constructor - Cargo ship which builds and improves star bases and claim resources. A more expensive version with a higher speed can be designed to claim resources near rival territory.

Corvette - A medium ship designed to defend worlds from invasion. Requires heavy defense to survive the initial attack. No engines or life support are necessary, as the ship will rarely leave orbit.

Cruiser - A fast medium + ship with medium attack and defense.

Defender - A small ship designed to defend worlds from invasion. Requires heavy defense to survive the initial attack. No engines or life support are necessary, as the ship will rarely leave orbit.

Destroyer - A fast medium + ship with a high attack and a low defense.

Dreadnought - A huge heavily defended capital ship.

Escort - A ship (usually tiny or small) designed to protect capital ships. Designed to be fast, cheap, and with a higher value than the capital ship. (Attack / [Defense + Hit Points])

Freighter - A ship to create trade routes. Should have some engines and some life support.

Fighter - The general term for tiny and small ships.

Frigate - A medium ship armed with missiles.

Interceptor - A tiny or small ship with very high speed designed to perform quick attack missions into enemy lands, or to quickly attack invasion fleets before they can reach your planets. Best used in large fleets.

Scout - A ship (usually tiny or small) designed to explore and to observe enemy lands. Usually unarmed. If armed, do not expect to be involved in any heavy fighting. Requires both sensors and high speed.

Transport - An unarmed ship to transport troops. Should be as fast as possible, as well as some sensors to make spotting the enemy easier.

For classes I use Earth Alliance names from B5 (and the models on metaverse) followed by a model number

Eg Thunderbolt MKI (Replaces the defender)

Medium , Large and Huge ships are indicidually named.

Medium : City names
Large : Country names
Huge : Stuff like Mammoth , Colosuss , Behemoth

Weeeeeeeeeeell, tis like this.

First you have the class ie you design a medium hull with some beams and some defences and save it as something like "Gladius class Destroyer".

Then when I build them I might name individual ships (or fleets if i'm feeling lazy or indeed have a lot of ships)

When you build big heavy cruiser/ battleship/ man'o war/ battlebarge (i do like me big ships) you want to name in the kinda name that would strike fear into the filthy Xenos.

Things like Fist of Vengence, Benevolent Judgement, Shield of Innocence, Vengeful Spirit, Ark Impierial, Pointy Stick of the Emperor.

Tis but a tatse and style thing. Much more fun thinking "oh dear a number of aliens are attempting to thwart hunanity's manifest destiny to rule the stars by invading i'll rediect the Drachenfells and her attendant destroyers Octavian squadron to give them the kicking of a lifetime!"

each to his own i suppose.

Here's a nice little reference for U.S. Navy hull designations from WWII.
Includes auxiliaries, combatants, yard craft, landing craft, coasties, merchant, and patrol craft.
Most things that a space vessel would be doing have already been defined in wet navy terms by a hull designation...with the exception of colony ships...that is a horse of an entirely different color.

Link

All my classes have a prefix followed by the number of that design. Like 5th frigate design is FG-5. All ships of that class then are numbered as FG-501, then FG-502 etc. My larger ships (large hull size and above) also have individual names, usually taken from mythological gods and heroes such as Heracles and Mjollinir, name worthy words such as Redemption and Defiant, famous ships such as Enterprise (the WW2 carrier, not the one from Star Trek) and Bismarck, battles throughout history like Agincourt and Kokoda and of course famous Generals and War Heroes like Hannibal Barca and Georgy Zhukov.

That is all.

I try to name my ships (and planets) after old Roman (military) Latinnames. Frigate types and bigger ships get unique names . I have a home-made list for both planets and ships. Though not only confined to old Roman names (I also use different language names but with a "leader", "military" and "empire" theme) most of the time I use these. I use a ship prefix, fleet prefix and base prefix and a upgrade number (MK I, MK II etc) . If I play Terrans I do this as the Terra Nova (New World) alliance . So TNS for Tera Nova Ship, TNF for Terra Nova Fleet, TNSB for Terra Nova StarBase.

For anybody who's interested, here's the list:

Ship

Empire
Imperator (Latin Military Rank)
Ursupator (Latin name for rebel)
Consul (Latin)
Tsar (Russian)
Hegemony
Kaiser (German)
Imperium
Heer (Dutch for Lord)
King
Battaleur (French)
Commander
Vicotorius
Olympia
Aquila (Latin for Eagle, also the most important bearer, most of the time this is my flagship)
Centurion (Latin)
Legion (Latin)
Maipulus (Latin)
Cohort (Latin)
Speculatores (Latin, scouts)
Evocatii (Latin, veterans)
Magister
Dominion
Duce (Latin, Italian)

And a little off-topic, but also maybe useful for people who are running out of idea's for planet names. They are pretty random, from company names to comic book SF planet names.

Kuruman (little town in South Africa)
Bozeman (think a Star Trek name?)
Spin Boldak (Afghanistan )
Hebron
Hyperion
Carnagle
Pax (Latin for peace)
Oberon
Victorinox
[planet name] Prime
Antioch
Midreth
Aegon
Neo... [planet name]
Strigoi
Tiberius
Noricum
Pontus
Salutaris
Lydia
Hyperboria
Nomicon
Heras

Damn, hope it wasn't that a big list, looking back.

I've used several systems for naming, usually depending on hull style. Also, I try to give a name conveying something about the intended role of the ship.

Some defensive ships- Porcupine, Armadillo, Hedgehog, Shieldbearer, Chain Mail, Stegosaur

Offensive ships-- Hammerhead, Razor, Minotaur, Shrike, Velociraptor

Construction ships- Hammer, Toolkit, Monkey Wrench, Bulldozer...

Also, I've tended to name ships indicating engine level.. so a warp 1 constructor= Warpastructor, a warp three would be a Triwarpastructor, and so on..

I'm working on a couple of different systems.

One is to take base names and just update them... Mark 2, 3, 4, ... or create a related name if I make an initial throwaway ship to test out a new technology. For instance, I might design a fighter with hyperdrive and mass drivers and call it the Avenging Angel in the early game. Any advancements would then be ... AAMk2 or Avenging Angel Mk 2

The other system is a labeling system based on class, primary weapon, primary defense, and main special (Sensor, 2nd weapon, etc.). For instance:

Tiny = Sub-fighter = sF
Small = Fighter = F
Medium = Corvette = C
Large = Destroyer = D
Huge = Angel = A

Laser = L Shield = S
Mass Driver = D Armor = A
Missle = M Point Def. = P

Specials:
Sensor = S
Laser = L Shield = S
Mass Driver = D Armor = A
Missle = M Point Def. = P


The ship name would then be something like: FLA Assassin Mk 10 ... It lets me quickly identify ship name and function while still letting me play around with names or uses for a ship.

Ship Classes.

Fighters
Space Leopard (beam armed)
Space Wolverine (missle armed)
Space Monkey (mass armed ie a poo thrower)

or
JEB Stuart
Longstreet
RE Lee

The best name I use on my sensor or stalking horse ships (the ones out there that tell me the enemy is coming by dieing)

Festering Wound
Sacrifical Lamb

Battle ships and above I name after Famous Military people.

Ghengis Khan (fleet name Golden Horde)

Shaka Zulu (Impe)

Napoleon (Old Gaurd)

Whats funny is the fleet with the battle ship I name Shaka Zulu always has the most die in battles but is very successful.

The biggest military star base is always named Mother (thank you David Weber).

Fighters when they get 20 + hit points started getting named and given there own named fleet. Red Baron (fleet name Flying Cirucs), Pappy Boyington (Black sheep).

Constors classes are named Handyman, Wetback, Honky, Thrall

Duh

I like birds of prey, venomous insects and mythological monsters. The name should match up with the design of the ship. For upgrades, add Mk 2, 'III', or a name to indicate the updated weapons such as 'Phasor' or 'Harpoon'.

I name my ships very simply.

Colony I(I never make more after all planets I can take are taken)
Constructor I, II, III, etc.
Then T for tiny, S for Small, M for medium, H for heavy, J(juggernaut) for huge.
Then its beam, missle, or gunship, or Ter(for territoy, ie-ships with only one engine)
Then its either attack(as many weapons as can be fit), hard(one type of armour), tough(2 or more types of armour)
Then its just I, II, II, etc

So its like this:
S-Beam Hard I
or
S-Missle Ter I
or
S-Gunship Attck I

etc.

That little Canadian flag icon has pretty much sealed my fate in GalCivII. I now exclusively play as the Canadian Space Agency (or Space Canadians for colloquial). As a result, I like to name my ships after Canadian icons. The tiny ships are Timbits. The biggest ship is the Prime Minister. I like to throw in some Terry Fox-class hulls, some Trudeaus, Chretiens, and Mulroneys, and the occaisional Gretzky-class is always a good bet. There's Moose-class, Beaver-class, Maple Leaf-class, as well as Roughrider-class, Stampeder-class, and so on. I have yet to use Krall, Shatner, Myers, Carrey and other classes based on the Canadian star system, but there's yet a lot of games left for my Space Canadians to play out. Probably, I will have to save a Celine Dion -class for the civilization-destroying superweapon at the end of the game, although we Space Canadians prefer to be peace-keepers rather than galaxy-reapers.

I have similar class names to everyone else (eg, Excelsior, Executor, Indefatigable, Formidable, Diligent, Defiant)--essentially lots of ships ending with "-able" ,"-ent", "-ant", and "-or". If I have an experimental line of ships (for example, armed with missiles instead of the rest of the fleet, which uses beam), I whimsically name them by terms that signify going against prevailing belief--for example, Heretic, Apostate, Unforgiven, Irreverent, Infidel, Unrepentant, Exile, Damnable, Impertinent, Incorrigible, etc. They ended up being my favorite names.

BTW I'll let Celine know that you are saving her name for the galaxy destroying superweapon in your fleet. I'm sure she'll be amused.

Ex-girlfriends...

So that when I lose a ship it doesn't feel as bad.

Hah!
My Canuckistani's from Canuckistan will trump your Space Canadians anyday...

I tend to name my ships first and formost on if they are non-combat ships. If they serve a non-battle purpose (Colony Ship, etc.) Then I'll name it based on that. Then we start getting to my combat ships I'll go first on general appearence, like my Battle Crabs and Ring Fighters and Triangle Stars. These I keep for up to large. After that I start using some of the names for ships I used in Orion 2, like the Wrath and the Orion Buster.

Fur suffixes I go one of 3 routes. If I feel the crucial part of that ship is it's battle stats I'll use an X-Y and either B, M or D. X being defense, Y being Offense and you can probably figure out what B, M and D stand for. If I stress that the biggest bonus to that one is speed I'll use the suffix S-#. Else if neither of these are important I'll just use the Mk# system.