posted
When I was a kid, my friend Miguel and I would build "starships" out of Legos. Essentially, we'd just put down baseplates, and build bridges, and engineering rooms, and sickbays, and shuttlebays, and transporter rooms, and cargo bays, and stuff like that. Perhaps for old times sake I'll build one of those again ... walls three bricks tall, blank sloped pieces to stand in for computers ... every now and then we'd build a turbolift.
But no matter how inventive our "ships" were, we were always stuck for names.
Try having a fleet of over 70 starships and you'll get "builders block" too. Illustrious is a good one (brought to mind by your choice) Spectre works for the Centaur Got any Vulcan names? Mabye some stellar phenom? How about some non-terran names...I already have every WWII ship names I'll ever need....
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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"Jane's Fighting Ships" is always an asset, as are the bargain "World navies" books at Barnes & Noble & the like. I still have photocopied index listings of names from a library's copies of the 1925, 1952, 1974, & 1983 editions of Jane's. They supplement my personal world navy books & are good because they add in a lot of smaller nations; a lot of the Arabic & African names I have in my lists are thanks to Jane's.
I try to use lots of different names for different things. The last ships I built were Al Keriat (Arabic), Shenzhou (Chinese), & am now working on Lightoller, after the 2nd officer of the Titanic. Freighters might be named after plants--Honeysuckle, Snapdragon, Canada Thistle, or Star Of Bethlehem. "Things" work as well for support vessels: Coronal Flare, Van Allen Belt, Stellar Cluster, Ring Nebula, Eos Chasma. There's a whole bunch of named features on other worlds in this solar systems alone. I listen for oddly unique names around me; a lot of ships in my lists are from voter rolls of a stat house district in Connecticut (There's an idea, since voter rolls are public domain & available at the city clerk's office). Coworkers & people around you help as well; Broxie & Fabo came from a coworker & my roommate's ex-girlfriend.
As for alien-sounding names..it's not really difficult. Think about various syllables & sounds. For known races (Vulcans, Andorians, etc.) think about the names we have from those races.
Right here, looking through my address book, I come up with Tualatin, Fontenot, Giarmarco, Lugo, Vairo, Quibodeaux, & Orillia. Go look through some of the "You're The Admiral!" threads.
It's not hard.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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I have (and have used) the janes guide for much of my fleet....no more former ship names from navies (at least for right now). Famous explorers and world leaders sound cool though....Ideas?
I's rather have alien names that actually mean something rather than phonetcally "winging it".
Anybody know of good sounding alien planets or moons of signifigance within the federation? What are Vulcan's moons called? Probably 1, 2, and 3 knowing those boring SOB's!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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In the novels and some early tech books, Vulcan's native name was T'Khasi and the large planet seen in the original TMP was T'Khut. A great resource for alien planet names might be Shane Johnson's Worlds of the Federation. The book also lists the "current" ambassadors from the listed worlds, so that's another source. LUG's Vulcan and Andor sourcebooks might also be of great use for names of locations and people from those worlds, but there are literally hundreds of alien names in the LUG books altogether. Then you could always borrow liberally from Todd Guenther's Ships of the Star Fleet, which has several alien names and shipyards, or even FASA. Oh, Star Trek Maps and the Spaceflight Chronology, too. I have all of the above and more, if anyone wants further info.
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Thanks Ryan, but I have NONE of those books, so why not list a few cool names you think fo with the abpve unbuilt starships and what they come from. I'd be grateful.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Famous explorers and world leaders sound cool though....Ideas?
Sure, in that overdone, totally conformist way...
quote:I's rather have alien names that actually mean something rather than phonetcally "winging it".
I'm not even going to go into the problematic aspects of finding "alien names that actually mean something."
One remembers the talent show episode of "The Critic" where Zoltan Villamiravitch sings his nation's anthem which consists of "eepie oopie peepee poopie" & everyone laughs, although he takes it quite seriously. So.
Beauty is in the eye of the beheld, Tubby McFattles.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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Here's a few names for you from a few references I had around my computer desk. Many are astromony-related, but would make good Starfleet ship names:
capped
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Member # 709
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my never before glimpsed fanfic features a series of tug/tenders that are all named for types of apples: Macoun, Braeburn, Cortland, Jonagold, Gravenstein, Yataka, Mutsu, Gala, Lodi.. yes, maybe even Macintosh
one time i drew a mural with small fighter-skiffs that were all named after former governors of Georgia..
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1, 2, and 3 knowing those boring SOB's!
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