Cool names

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

What are the names you like to use for your commercial ships? I find myself always using the same, so I'm looking for a breath of fresh air!

For me, freighters are often called workhorse, Bulk Hauler, Atlas. Colony ships Mayflower, Ark, Pilgrim, Transliner. Tug can be called Mule, Sorium harvester are Cornucopia or Ambrosia and Asteroid Miner can be called Ozymandias.

And you? 

[Barkhorn]

For commercial ships (not including surveyors) I just name the classes, not each ship.  For military and survey ships I use whatever naming theme most closely matches my empire's and the class's theme.  So if I'm playing a US themed empire and I'm making a destroyer class, I might name it Fletcher.  Individual ships would follow the US Navy Heroes theme, just like the Navy did in WW2 in real life.

btw if you don't already know this, on the DAC tab in the design window you can select a name theme for the ships of that class to use.  So for instance those destroyers I mentioned might end up getting named Mahan, John Paul Jones, or Samuel B Roberts.

[MarcAFK]

Right now I'm using names from Ian M Banks culture series.  They're quirky and unusual, a nice change from the boring names I generally use.

Some of the names have been pared down to not cause overflows.

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

Ah yes, The Cuture 

I have trouble playing anything but a 'standard' human federation or a derivative from an existing Earth country. I'm not sure why. Related to that, Paradox will be releasing a series of Humanoids portraits for Stellaris as a DLC, because 50% of all games ever created in Stellaris are using the Human race.

Anthropomorphism at its best!

[serger]

I use my own lists, extracted partly from British Royal Navy Shiplist, and partly from my roleplay imagination. 

For example, that's from my last 2 campaings:

Main battle ships
Sovereign, Majestic, Superb, Redoubtable, Furious, Terrible, Formidable, Renown, Victorious, Triumphant
Defence, Vanguard, Repulse, Vengeance, Revenge, Nemesis, Trident, Sceptre, Warspite, Orion, Colossus
Courageous, Audacious, Intrepid, Undaunted, Resolute, Valiant, Inflexible, Fearless, Dauntless, Steadfast, Indomitable, Daring, Dreadnought
Tiger, Lion, Glorious, Illustrious, Hyperion

Carriers
Europe, America, Africa, India, Orient, Oceania
Void, Infinity, Horizon, Veil
Constitution, Concord, Codex, Commonwealth

Cruisers
Cyrus, Hannibal, Caesar, Attila, Temujin, Saladin
Dragon, Wyvern, Hydra, Medusa, Manticore
Centaur, Condor, Crescent
Amazon, Amethyst, Astute, Acheron
Spartan, Scythian, Sarmathian

Stealth raiders
Havoc, Horror, Hazard, Harass, Terror, Tartar, Ferret, Fortune, Vigilant, Vulture, Aggressor, Arrogant, Avenger, Avalanche, Assassin, Savage, Scimitar, Scorcher, Scorpion, Storm

Division troopships
Conqueror, Dictator, Tyrant

Salvagers
Saturn, Samhain, Sagittarius, Salsa

Freihters
[Historical trade port names]

Cryotransports
[River names]

Tankers
[Lake, gulf, inner sea names]

Tugs
[Mountain names]

Later in the game, when my empire have enough astrography objects and history "store" - I use my colony names, names of dead seniour officers, names of major battles, etc.

[obsidian_green]

Somebody's channeling my naming conventions. 

Like serger, I also use continents (with oceans in the back pocket if I build more than seven) for carriers and famous military leaders for at least one warship type. Rivers, lakes, and mountains also get play with me.

I've found it convenient to add prefixes to all my ships, so my first carrier was "[CV-001] Africa" and my latest dreadnought was "[DN-004] Brennus".

Web searches can turn up lots of lists which can be used for naming ships, sometimes organized non-alphabetically so every early name doesn't have to start with "A". Key is matching longer lists with the types of ships you build most frequently. In my case that's been freighters, but I didn't anticipate that when I started the game, so freighter naming conventions have evolved more haphazardly in my current game than I'd prefer.

[serger]

Yep, I use type prefixes too. Just shorter ones - CV-01 Europe, for example. My campaigns are not very long and abundant, because of VB6 Aurora lags, so I know that it will be no more than 99 ships of one type in my Navy, and I want to fit those names in the game interface fields.