Here are some categories to help kickstart your brain. I find that I have a lot more fun when I'm using ship names that are unique because it makes their story more interesting and gives them a more distinct flavor. There are a lot of campaigns and real science fiction settings with ships that have names like
New York,
Enterprise,
Ticonderoga...why not
Sao Paulo,
Clarion, or
Red Cliffs:
my very large missile cruisers are all of the "statesmen" class and named after famous statesmen from all over the world: The Winston Churchill, Sun Yat Sen, James Madison, Pericles
my very large carriers are similarly named after great military leaders: alexandre, augustus, kuzmin, coronado (two of these are leaders that came about after the game started)
my battlecruisers are named after planets I have colonized: Terra, Tiamat, Ares, Monticello, Vadim, Mediterrania,...
my main battle line battleships are named after notable stars: Algol, Polaris, Sirius, Capella,....
my laser frigates, also on the main battle line, are all given female names (including as an in-joke several ex girlfriends): Amanda, Alceste, Xuan, Adi Puteri, Courtney...
my scout cruisers are all given names for magical practitioners: Magicienne, Wushi, vr?jitor, bajalica....
my light carriers are all given synonyms for "constitution": Concordance, Accord, Alliance, Constitution, Resolution...
my old fleets of beam frigates were given northern hemisphere cities: new york, london, belfast, taipei, shanghai, omsk
my old fleets of missile frigates were given southern hemisphere cities: sao paulo, singapore, melbourne, rio de jinero
other name sets I've used:
- characters from a single particular epic (gilgamesh or beowulf or the kalevala)
- ships used by explorers (endurance, victoria, santa maria...)
- meterological phenominon (typhoon, meteor, aurora, umbani)
Remember that if you're doing a "traditional setting" your empire is going to be hundreds of years in the future and composed of people from all races, cultures, and religions. It wouldn't make sense for a space empire to name everything after stuff from US history (ticonderoga, robert e lee, George Washington, ect) even if the united states was in absolute control of the whole world...just look at what happened when the modern US nation took over land formerly controlled by native americans...half our stuff is named after their stuff (nebraska, kansas, chicago, tuxedo, ohio, ogallalla, dakota,ect). Also remember that names of things that seem big and important are not always given to the names of big or important ships. If I asked you to name the most powerful military leaders in US history, you probably wouldn't name Chester Nimitz, but currently he's the guy we named our
most powerful ships after. Similarly, for a long time our mightiest battleships weren't of the "Texas" class or "New York" class but the
Iowa ClassI think it's fun to give a lot of thought to which cultures have risen and fallen in the interim, which military leaders have been so notable as to merit ships named after them, and which cultures would be represented even if they are extinct or trivial. in my game, Brazil and China control most of the old planet earth, and colonies have unique geography and identity, so that effects a lot. I use a lot of Hawaiian, mandarin, Hungarian, and spanish names as well.