A ship's name says who flies it. Serenity, in Firefly, is named after a battle its captain lost. The Rocinante, in The Expanse, is named after Don Quixote's horse. Iain M. Banks' Culture novels gave their sentient ships names like So Much For Subtlety. This spaceship name generator makes names in all those styles.
How famous ships were named
- A story: Serenity is named for the Battle of Serenity Valley, where Mal Reynolds fought on the losing side.
- A literary joke: the Rocinante is Don Quixote's horse; the Nostromo in Alien shares its name with a Joseph Conrad novel.
- A registry and a name: the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, follows naval tradition.
- A sentence: the Culture's ships pick their own names, like Of Course I Still Love You, which SpaceX later borrowed for a drone ship.
Choosing a name for your ship
- Who named it? A navy names ships after virtues and heroes; a smuggler names a ship after a joke or a grudge.
- Let the crew shorten it. Nobody says the full name in an emergency.
- Use the registry prefix for official ships. The generator's prefixes are invented, so they won't clash with a real space agency or a famous fictional navy.
For the crew, try the Robot, Alien and Cyberpunk name generators.