Naming Theme Suggestions

Suggestions
1

Here I want to revive the Naming Theme Suggestions thread from the old forums. Everyone, please feel free to add your own suggestions!

To quote AuroraSteve from the old thread:

There are various other naming theme suggested in different threads and sub-fora and I sure I missed some of them or forgot to go back. Therefore, this is now the ‘Official’ naming theme suggestion thread and has three purposes:

  1. Post your complete naming themes here. This only requires a title for the theme and a list of names with one per line (either as a text file or directly in the post). I’ll add them to C# Aurora.

  2. Requests for names to create a specific theme. For example, using Bartimeus’ example, suggestions for one or more genre-appropriate but non-canon names for WH40K ships that can eventually be combined into a theme

  3. Making sure I don’t forget to include a theme that someone has made the effort to create.

1 Like
2

List of Earth cities tiered by population (4025)

It is an old tradition to name ships after cities.

And it made sense to me that smaller ships should be named after smaller towns. I trawled Wikipedia’s lists of cities by population and grouped them for ship sizes.

Earth Cities A 1M+
356 ‘Battleship-sized’ cities with a population above 1 million e.g.

Milano
Ottawa
Hiroshima
Izmir
Birmingham

Earth Cities B 500k-1M
468 ‘Cruiser-sized’ cities of 500,000 to 1 million people e.g.

Campo Grande
Astrakhan
Jeju
Gurgaon
Dresden

Earth Cities C 250k-500k
828 ‘Destroyer-sized’ cities of 250,000 to 500,000 people e.g.

Tirunelveli
Minneapolis
Kikuyu
Iquitos
Heroica Nogales

Earth Cities D 125k-250k
1568 ‘Frigate-sized’ cities of 125,000 to 250,000 people e.g.

Halle
Mukono
Sekaka
Modesto
Bahawalnagar

Earth Cities E 100k-125k
805 ‘Corvette-sized’ cities of 100,000 to 125,000 people e.g.

Magalang
Shchelkovo
Buckeye
Kalyani
Kuopio

Battleship Cities of the World 1M+ (356).txt (3.6 KB)

Corvette Cities of the World 100-125k (805).txt (8.6 KB)

Frigate Cities of the World 125-250k (1568).txt (17.0 KB)

Destroyer Cities of the World 250-500k (828).txt (8.8 KB)

Cruiser Cities of the World 500k-1M (468).txt (5.0 KB)

3

10,000 Novel Stars

We’ve all had our adventures at Alpha Centauri, Orion or Achenar. But sometimes it is nice to have stars with completely unfamiliar names to spin our own stories.

I took Wikipedia’s list of named stars, dissected them into quasi-syllables and ran them through a randomizer. The resulting names are a mad mix of mostly arabic, greek and latin word fragments, but they plausibly enough sound like stars:

Alph Akyaka
Apus Ellima
Komone
Eltingo
Interingo
Lyncami
Celumadys
Aqaron
Khedi

There are 10,000 of them, which should suffice for most games.
I checked the list for duplicates, but only the first ~1000 names for accidental profanity, so use at your own risk.

Novel Stars.txt (93.2 KB)

1 Like
4

List of Futuristic Names (1156)

I wanted some futuristic sounding names that are unrelated to any excisting media franchise. Starting from the idea that names originally described the abilities or attributes of person I took lists of English descriptive adjectives and feelings, common verbs, and general and philosophical concepts. Then I shortened them by 20 % and edited them slightly for pronounceability and to remove accidental profanity:

  • 430 Futuristic Adjective Names
  • 396 Futuristic Verb Names
  • 190 Futuristic Concept Names

Using Futuristic Adjective Names for first names and Futuristic Concept Names for surnames gives names like:

Hesita Devo
Help Gorg
Caust Awes
Relucta Du
Compos Ali

Using Futuristic Verb Names for first names and Futuristic Concept Names for surnames gives names like:

Proce Ela
Ris Beam
Clai Gene
Eas Awf
Sa Fran

Futuristic Adjective Names.txt (3.0 KB)

Futuristic Verb Names.txt (3.1 KB)

Futuristic Concept Names.txt (1.1 KB)

5

Prominent Operas (330)

Sometimes you just want to bring high culture to the stars. Or have some pretentious names for the big ships.
So I trawled Wikipedia’s list of prominent operas and randomized its order. The first names in the list are:

Der fliegende Holländer
The Prodigal Son
Pagliacci
Alceste
The Queen of Spades
Eine florentinische Tragödie
Vanessa
Billy Budd
Béatrice et Bénédict

Operas.txt (5.4 KB)

6

Well-known Polymaths, Natural Philosophers, Mathematicians and Philosophers (250)

If there is something every Aurora-player wants, it’s more capable scientists! I looked at Wikipedia’s lists of well-known Polymaths, Natural Philosophers, Mathematicians and Philosophers. They make good ship names for exploration crafts, but there’s also something to seeing the salvage vessel SV Friedrich Nietzsche taking apart a wrecked hull. The first names in the list are:

John Dewey
Ann Baynard
Alexander von Humboldt
Confucius
Thales
Cesare Cremonini
Max Hartmann
Anaximander
Shabtai Ambron
Jean-Nicolas-Sébastien Allamand

Polymaths and Philosophers.txt (4.0 KB)

7

UNESCO World Heritage Sites (1196)

Most Aurora games start with humans from the planet Earth. I figured places of important to our heritage would make good names for civilian ships. Luckily the UNESCO already had assembled such a list of World Heritage Sites and I just had to edit it.

The official titles of the sites are shortened to fit better as ship names. For example, “Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci” simply became “The Last Supper”. The list omits memorial sites dedicated to torture or genocide. While they are an important part of our shared history, I found it unfitting to name ships after them.

The first names in the list are:

Naval Port of Karlskrona
Champagne Hillside
Lamu Old Town
Ancient Si Thep
Niokolo-Koba
Eisinga Planetarium
Portico of Bologna
The Jantar Mantar
Venice and its Lagoon
Aasivissuit – Nipisat

UNESCO Heritage Sites.txt (20.8 KB)

8

I’ve enabled .txt files.

9

Thank you, I’ll edit my posts to re-upload and remove the workaround.

10

Here is a list of names either pulled from or inspired by the ship naming screen in Helldivers 2, with some of the more universe-specific (ie “Super Earth”) and satirical (ie “Elected Representative of Family Values”) names removed. All names are in the format “X of Y”, with 7150 total combinations from 130 “X” and 55 “Y” phrases. Examples:

  • Master of Law
  • Blade of the People
  • Titan of Audacity
  • Wings of Redemption
  • Queen of the Stars

Not all the combinations sound as cool (ie “Patriot of Patriotism”), but most are pretty good, and there are plenty to re-roll.

helldivers.txt (146.2 KB)

2 Likes
11

These are a set of names from the Lost Fleet book series, divided by ship class. They work well for a generic united Earth theme without being too nation-specific like most historical lists.

  • Battleships (37 names): Arrogant, Fearless, Majestic, Redoubtable, Revenge
  • Battlecruisers (31 names): Dauntless, Furious, Adroit, Valiant, Avenger
  • Heavy Cruisers (58 names): Redoubt, Manticore, Citadel, Parapet, Basilisk
  • Light Cruisers (59 names): Kite, Staff, Eagle, Pommel, Chase
  • Destroyers (91 names): Bandolier, Culverin, Flail, Kukri, Spitfire

lost-fleet-battleships.txt (383 Bytes)

lost-fleet-battlecruisers.txt (314 Bytes)

lost-fleet-heavy-cruisers.txt (508 Bytes)

lost-fleet-light-cruisers.txt (488 Bytes)

lost-fleet-destroyers.txt (758 Bytes)

3 Likes