Naming Help

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've started a new campaign based on Babylon 5. The player race is the Earth Alliance (with Omega class destroyers, Hyperion class cruisers, etc.) and there are five starting NPRs (Centauri, Narn, Dilgar, Drazi, Brakiri). I may add more. Obviously the Invaders are the Shadows.

I've decided to use the known system names as much as possible as they are used in that universe. However, there are a lot of minor systems with WISE, Gliese, etc. names, so I need to create some form of naming theme. I was thinking of having a few categories of minor systems and then combine each one with the Greek alphabet, so there is <theme1> Alpha, <theme1> Beta, etc.

What I am struggling to decide is the category and the names. One category could be brown dwarves for example, while another could be planetless systems. So I am open to suggestions about categories and category names that would work with the Babylon 5 theme.

[db48x]

That's an interesting idea. Sigma 956 seems to have been a system that had no habitable worlds, perhaps that would fit the naming scheme. I recall "Beta" being used a lot for colonies. The Centauri apparently called Sol "Beta 12", and through a clerical error initially thought it was "Beta 9", where they had once sent a colony. Earth had a Beta colony too.

[Beersatron]

Just call them all 'Zathras'

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

That's an interesting idea. Sigma 956 seems to have been a system that had no habitable worlds, perhaps that would fit the naming scheme. I recall "Beta" being used a lot for colonies. The Centauri apparently called Sol "Beta 12", and through a clerical error initially thought it was "Beta 9", where they had once sent a colony. Earth had a Beta colony too.

Yes, there is more than one Beta # colony for Earth. The Centauri also called a lot of systems Quadrant #. I was trying to avoid a <theme> # though, as that wouldn't be that different than Gliese #.

BTW, the game is less than one year old and one NPR is being attacked by two others. Very different than VB6 as auto turns zip through the interrupts, although that might be due to my new PC which is faster than the old one. Given the name, I had to buy an Alienware Aurora

[Froggiest1982]

That's an interesting idea. Sigma 956 seems to have been a system that had no habitable worlds, perhaps that would fit the naming scheme. I recall "Beta" being used a lot for colonies. The Centauri apparently called Sol "Beta 12", and through a clerical error initially thought it was "Beta 9", where they had once sent a colony. Earth had a Beta colony too.

Given the name, I had to buy an Alienware Aurora

Great machine, it will go well with your UltraWide Monitor.

I need my 3 monitors UHD 28" so I couldn't go for this one but I may have to give up someday and invest in a wider screen.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've come up with a potential solution for creating more meaningful names, although I have gone back over 400 years for the idea

I'm going to invent my own Bayer designations for stars where that name doesn't already exist. For example, WISE 0350-5658 is the constellation Reticulum and the Bayer-designated stars only go up to Kappa. So I've renamed WISE 0350-5658 as Lambda Reticuli. I'll see how far I can get with that idea

EDIT: I've found this extremely useful wiki page that contains all the 'missing' designations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_stars_with_Bayer_designations

I might even add the new Bayer names as an option for Known Stars games (when I get the time to go through them).