I try to keep some sense of naval naming conventions. The Escorts i have for one of my characters have had the following names:

U.S.S. Sarek - Lt. Science Officer on his first ship. Honestly as fast as LT. goes by, I think I kept the stock name.
U.S.S. Tel Aviv - Lt. Commander-level escort, keeping with the naval tradition of naming vessels after States, Countries, and cities.
U.S.S. James Stewart - Commander Escort keeping with the convention of naming vessels after retired Admirals/Generals. Yes, Jimmy Stewart the actor was also a retired Air Force General.
and finally:
U.S.S. Starasyel'ski - My Defiant Class escort at Captain level - named after the most famous group of WWII Soviet Partisans

I've named other ships after famous astronauts (Gagarin, Grissom, White), battles (Trafalgar, Leyte Gulf), earlier famous ships (Arc Royal, Bismarck, Musashi, Forrestal), famous generals/admirals (Scipio, Zhukov, Halsey).

Do any of you have personal naming conventions for your ships? If so, what are they?

I do generally choose names that wouldn't look out of place on the hull of a Starfleet ship.

Some are named after places, like Douglas, or Aquitaine (also named for a ship from Freespace 2).

Others I take from mythology, such as Fragarach, Answerer (a possible translation of Fragarach), or Hesperides.

Others just chosen because they sound suitably ship-y, like Freedom, Sceptre, or Buccaneer.

I tend to avoid posturing sort of names like Warspite (even though I like that one), or Revenge. They just smack of insecurity. :p

U.S.S. Mattis - Rev up the Harley. *wink wink* (oh it's obscure for sure) But I did enjoy riding it.
U.S.S. Urshult - Alienish, no? Well it's a place.
U.S.S. Hircine - Oh the amount of stupid tells I got for that. No it's not related to Skyrim you low IQ hircine person. :p
U.S.S. Judy - I have no idea actually.
I.K.S. Hedoth - A lil homage to my favorite game ever! "Welcome back, masters. Humanity is ready to learn obedience."


So no. No actual guidelines for names other than at least one of the ships for my feds have to be named Mattis. Oh behave.

I normally go with names that fit the character theme if one exists.

USS Michal is named after my sister on my Fleet Escort.
USS Breaking Dawn to mildly troll and stick with the Twilight naming convention on my Gal X.
USS Ortega for my sister's Drow toon. I'm told it means sword in Drow.
IKS Cub Bear for my carrier to fit in with Mama and Papa Bear, two carriers that two friends have.

The wittiest name I ever saw though was the USS R.

You owe me a monitor as I just spewed my coffee all over it when reading this.

That one definitely holds a place in my top 3 for hilarious names.

On my tactical character, Shadovarn, I went with a slightly fantasy bent in my ship names (Mostly since he looks like a space drow)
My Miranda was traded in for a Constitution (way back when) which I named the U.S.S. Knight
Lt. Commander brought me the Saber, which I named the U.S.S. Thief
The Akira would later be called the U.S.S. Schavuit
And both Defiants named the U.S.S. Bandit.
My fleet escort became the U.S.S. Ronin, which was something I should have used on the Akira (Since it's apparently more of a cruiser and the class name)
I think got the Titan class (The admiral science vessel) which I named the U.S.S. Wizard.
And my Sovereign, The U.S.S. Paladin.
(Notice, I got these things way before the Update)

On my Klingon, I'm going with various gladiator titles, such as Gladiator and Bloodletter.

On my Science Officer, Harold P. Lovecraft, all ships will be named after all the cosmic horrors from the Cthulhu Mythos.

I did quite a bit of research on my ship name. The 'Spitfire' name has been used throughout naval warfare history. In Star Trek NCC-1940-G Defiant class ship was among the task force that the IKS Rotarraan and the USS Defiant joined following Starfleet's withdrawal from DS9. (DS9 "Call to Arms"). It's also shown in the games Armada and Armada II. I'm also using all phasers DHC and turrets so when i fire it looks like it is literally "spitting fire".

The Miranda gets a random name. Don't care about it since it gets replaced as soon as I hit ESD. And discharged to save a slot. lol

The replacement Connie I will name after a TOS character more times than not.

If I get a Stargazer, I normally name it the U.S.S. Picard (because I forget the other Stargazer crew although I should read Reunion again to remember)

If I get a Defiant, normally it's the U.S.S. Sisko although DS9 characters might also work besides Sisko.

Notice the pattern? lol

KDF normally gets randoms just to fit Klingon names since I can't think of any myself. Although I did run by a Gal'Actica carrier.

Have a look at my recent post:

http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...d.php?t=249839

;-)

for my Tier 1 to Low Tier 5 ships I pick a theme and run with it. For Instance

Male Catian Tac: WWII Battleship names
Male Grey Sci: US Civil War Battle names
Female Human Eng: Robotech/Macross Theme
Male Human Eng: Arthurian Legendary weapon names in Welsh
Male Alien Sci: Apollo 11 related names
Female Alien Sci: Babylon 5 Theme


Then I get to the Tier 5+ ships and they all turn out to be Yamato, Mushashi, and Shinano