How do YOU call your ships?

I tend to avoid the naval vessel naming conventions altogether. Playing evil empires, I use whatever nasty-sounding combinations come to mind. Bloodletter, Bonestalker, Starflayer, Dreamrender, Soulbreaker - something nice to let my enemies know that I care.

After the base name I usually add attack, defense, and sometimes movement to keep them straight as I do minor upgrades. Usually I stick with one weapon type and one armor type per ship type, but if I do something unusual I might add a letter like 'b' for beam weapon or 'a' for armor.

So for instance, Soulbreaker 84-72-12 might have 84 points of missile attack, 72 points of armor, and movement 12. Soulbreaker 72b-72-12 would have beam weapons instead of the missiles that its older brothers would be using.

If it's an upgrade from an existing design (e.g. Defender, BattleAxe), I just add +, ++, +++ to the name or Roman capitals beyond that.
That way I easily see which ships I should upgrade to which design + I immediately know they're small/medium hulled, etc.

For upgrades from colony ships: ER for extended range, to reach distant planets
For upgrades from transports: 2K holds 2000 troops and speed = 3pc/week, 3K holds 3000 troops and has speed 5 or 7 pc/week

For designs from scratch I'm considering creating some logic for the names, getting too lazy to try to come up with entertaining names, e.g.:
S/M/L for hull size
weapon type
attack
indication of its use (S for speed, H for heavy meaning armored, ...) or I would use an analogy with US aircraft (F for fighters, B for heavier armored designs, ...)

[Hull type]-[design number] [design name].

That's, for example, M-3 Drath Frigate for a medium hull that's the third combat design I've done this game, and a rather unpoetic design name.

More poetic versions would be, say, L-6 Marauder or S-1 Dagger.

For non-combat ships, they're called [race name] [function] [number].

That's Thalan Constructor I, or Custom Colony II.

A medium-frigate might be MF-3 B10A10, signifying that it is the third frigate I've built and carries 10 points of beam weaponry and 10 points of armor.

Once a ship is actually built, I will name it. I try and name each class' ships after a different group of gods. I.e., all MF-3 vessels will be Greek gods, all LS-1s (large ships) might be Roman gods.

I name mine after birds (except for freighters), followed by mk Roman numeral to designate which design/version.

For example, medium hull ships are designated Eagle MkIV, as an Eagle class, version 4. My medium hull ships are dual role planetary defenders and interceptors.

The bulk of my attack ships, especially later in the game, are the huge Condor class.

Invaders are of the Raven class.

Constructors and miners are of the Pigeon and Woodpecker classes, respectively. Freighters are called the Greenspan class although I'm definitely open to suggestions meeting the fowl motif.

And finally, my survey ships (which turn into sensor arrays once I have Eyes of the Universe) are named Owl class.

I don't use any patern realy. When a design a ship, its named using the first word in my head. The first build ship has the same name, then each ship after follows the same method used in naming a class. And before the name I always put the empires acrinyme, such as HZE or IRS. I only use classifications such as frigate ect when I write the ship discription.

Size, Weapon, Version.

So:
M Photonic 3

Since I know the order of development of the weapons, this tells me how old the ship is....Although occasionally I can't remember what revision I am on, so I'll just add one or two to the version. This has one nice side benefit. The sizes just happen to fall alphabetically.

H = Huge
L = Large
M = Medium
S = Small
T = Tiny

And as I tend to go up ship classes further into the game, new ships tend to gravitate to the top of the list.

Transports are:
Troop xK yS
For example:
Troop 2K 7S contains 2000 troops and runs at speed seven before bonuses.

Constructors are Build Revision (I.E. Build 2)

I always delete older ship designs when there are none of that class left.

Not so good for roleplaying, but it's been very effective for sorting my ships.

I can't decide between:

[Hull][Role][Role Modification]-[Design #][Series Letter] Nickname

-or-

[Hull][Role][Role Modification]-[Design #]-[Mark #] Nickname

They are basically the same system the only difference being the Mark # vs Series Letter. These two are also identical in meaning, I just don't know whether its easier or more logical to use either a -# or Letter to signify what revision of the design it is.

Example:
TC-0A Gnat = TC-0-1 Gnat

They both mean:
Tiny Combat(ship), Design 0, Revision/Upgrade/Mark 1

It's silly but I just can't decide.
What do you guys think, a Number or a Letter???

I like numbers because it's just easier when I'm up at 3:30AM with insomnia. Remembering the alphabet can get hard!

I like to name my ships to keep with the flavor of one of the custom civs I usually play. For example, when playing Harkonnen I might name a ship Rabban or Feyd (also depending on hull size), and add a roman numeral afterwards for upgrades. I entertain myself more when I stick with a theme.

Sentient species taste better...

i dont indicate size when i name i just use the letters B,M or G to represent attack type ie beam,missile or gun and for defense I use the letters S,P or A for defense type ie shield ,point or armor so M3A4 would be a ship with attack of 3 missiles with defense type of armor of 3 for non combat i use its function ie trader or transport then a number to indicate how fast it can move

I have a very complex naming convention. This is mostly because eventually I'd like to do AARs, and having a naming convention that would work relatively well from a "realistic" standpoint makes it a little more fun. Therefore, my custom race, the Rintal'n, are a bird species, and the naming convention is as follows:

Each ship is two or three words (most three), where the name is: "Defense (adjective)," "Bird's," "Weapon (noun)."
Fighters, often having no defenses, have two-word names. I didn't want many fighters starting with the same word, so I left out the "none" for defenses. Thereby, for fighters (tiny and small hulls), defenses are Pale, Firm, and Busy for shields, armor, and PD respectively. Weapons for fighters are Peck, Claw, and Dive for Beam, MD, and Missiles respectively.

For Capital ships, Medium and Large hulls, there are more possibilities. Defenses: Pert, Hale, and Fast (S, Arm, PD), with Wise and Keen for S/A and S/PD, Bold for A/PD, and Wary for all and Rash for none. Weapons: Beak, Barb, and Hunt (B, MD, M), with Call and Lilt for B/MD and B/M, with Note for MD/M and Song for all.

Now, for the birds: for long games, I have ten bird names arranged in order from first to last generation: Kite, Vulture, Condor, Buzzard, Kestrel, Harrier, Goshawk, Hawk, Falcon, Eagle. If I know a game will be shorter I have a 5-generation list of Kite, Condor, Harrier, Falcon, Eagle.

That gives names such as the Rash Kestrel's Song, for a fifth-generation capital ships with all weapon types but no defenses. Also the Pale Eagle's Claw for a top-class fighter with shields and mass drivers. I think these create nice names which sound creative but don't require too much time (now that I've developed the system).

I also have names for role-specific ships, which would be followed by a Mk. designation if necessary. They are: Pelican for Cargo (including early "Cargo-Capital ships"), Crane for Constructors, Sparrow for Trade, Night Owl for Sentry, Journeying Stork for Colony, Flock of Crows for Troop Transports, Heron for Mining, Osprey's Vigil for Exploring/Surveying, and Magpie's Fury for Spore (very very rare appearance).

As for Huge-hulled ships? They're rare enough, normally, to allow me to come up with creative names on a case-by-case basis. Often they relate to my race, something like Rintal's Pride, Piaeris's Wrath, or Glory of Piaeria. Piaeris being their god, Piaeria being a miracle drug ala Bacta from Star Wars. However, if I play a game where huge hulls become common, the capital ship naming convention can be carried over well, usually.

No Albatross class? For shame.

Very intriguing naming schemes, though.

I use this basic naming:
Tiny: scouts, fighters
Small: heavy fighters
Medium: Frigates, corvettes
Large: Battleships, Cruisers.
Huge: Dreadnoughts.
However after each name I number it based on its generation.

then in the description I use this number code: 5,6,0,2,0,5,7. One number for the hall, shield, point def, Beam, laser, missle, and movement speed.

I'm so boring, I use ship names like -fighter1, -transport2, -constructor3. The dash in front puts them at the top of all the lists.

I used to use schnazzy names. Now only late game models get good names. Piranha, pike, bass etc or falcon, hawk, eagle. cats(lions,tigers and bears   ) Early game a medium hull with both weapons and defenses would be MC(medium cruiser) get stronger weapons or armor and it becomes MC1, so on. A ship with no defenses would be MA(medium attack) All my cruisers and attack ships have engines, only defenders have no engines and they would be MD. (large hulls would be LC,LA and LD). It keeps it very simple for me so that I can scroll through the ships very quickly.

After reading up on the Albatross (I don't know my colonial (mostly) southern hemisphere seabirds too well, I admit), I've changed the "Flock of Crows," which I didn't really like anyway, to the "Great Albatross," (Troop Transport). I liked Albatross for Colony ships, but Storks really don't work for Troop Transports (yet work pretty well realistically and very well based on stories for Colony Ships). And the Flock of Crows was a name I really didn't want to begin with. Thanks for the suggestion, Xei Win Toh.

A flock of crows is actually called a "murder", like pod of whales, or gang of kangaroos, etc. Would that name be more suitable?

Sentient species taste better...

A while ago, an older thread on this question stuck in my head for a while. I ended up trying to be a bit more methodical about my themed naming, bug names for Thalan vessels.

These days I tend to name ships [weapon type][hull size]_[speed][version]. So the first in a series of small laser-armed ships with an Impulse Drive is a Redfly 3. I've pretty much abandoned Huge hulls, so I get by with Gnats, Flies, Wasps, and Dragonflies. Scouts are Wanderbees.

I'm still not happy with bugs for colony ships, troop ships or constructors--so I mostly leave them with boring names appended with [speed][version].

I'd like a few more characters in the limit for ship names, but I expect that would be a real hassle for the UI.

I try to keep my fleet names to what ever I want. Then when I upgrade I just ad letters or #'s. I do however like the Idea you came up with yourself. A=attack D=defend and so on. Follow your ships around by hitting the tab bar for next ship G.G. OUT

I would also like to ad, if you use Lt,Hvy,Fst,Armed,Armored, short abverations to let you know more or less what the ship is capable of.,