[Vasudan Commander]

I noticed that of campaigns are well made, but the names are unoriginal.

Ive taken the liberty of doing a bit of research, and i stumbled across this link. It has quite a number of ancient egyptian names, suited much to Vasudan ships.
If you'd like i can find more, and look for Terran suited ships as well.

http://www.geocities.com/wally_mo/names.html

[Mefustae]

My trick, random article. Although it's sometimes more fun to pick a particular theme for the campaign and name ships and/or characters accordingly, such as picking names from a particular series of novels, or perhaps a Jutland analogue for example. A campaign i've got in the works takes some major themes from the Battle of Trafalgar, combining both names and vague events from that particular battle, and it still works quite seamlessly with the background of the Freespace 'verse.

[freespacegundam]

Here's the site I use for names. http://www.20000-names.com/

I tend to go with the standard naming convention for most FS2 ships.  The exception being installations and non-military forces.  For instance, in Dissident Theory the name of the cruiser is Aleron, a French word meaning "Knight", and the installations I usually give fort or territory or even old heroic names like Boone or Yukon.  Its fun to mix and match a bit with the non-military ships.

[aldo_14]

Except for certain exemptions (WW1/2 ships, places, pop-culture references, appropriate nouns or verbs), I rely upon www.pantheon.org.  Pretty much everything I've planned uses highly symbolical names.

[Centrixo]

i use my imagination for names.

GTD Jarthos
NTD Reeves
NTC Gailloposo
GTD Nazath
GTCv Lighsiga
etc.

for other named ships like vasudans, i use an eygptian overhead map for names.

[CP5670]

Except for certain exemptions (WW1/2 ships, places, pop-culture references, appropriate nouns or verbs), I rely upon www.pantheon.org.  Pretty much everything I've planned uses highly symbolical names.

I use the same source for most of my names, although I usually don't pay attention to the meanings.

[Roanoke]

Look on the back of a dvd and grab some names from the credits.


Oh, and,  Von Braun & Rickenbacker   

[Snail]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_mythological_characters

This? These are good. Shivan names can be:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hindu_gods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demons

For Vasudans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Egyptian_deities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Egyptian_goddesses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Egyptian_gods

Do not use Qetesh. It is the god of sex.

[Dark Hunter]

Do not use Qetesh. It is the god of sex.

Ransom used that one. It was a bizarre scavenging transport in Sync.

[NGTM-1R]

Do not use Qetesh. It is the god of sex.

Too late, I think somebody already did.

FSPort has a couple of sites listed for obtaining Shivan and Vasudan names in their links section, which I've tended to rely on. I've been playing off national rivalries by naming NTF ships for French warships and GTVA ones for British when they appear opposite each other.

I still haven't found a decent list of Minoan names, so I've had to invent a whole new scheme for Ancients ships.

[Snail]

What would that be?

[MP-Ryan]

Wikipedia is reliable for Egyptian mythology, for the Vasudans.  They also have a good long list of mythological demons from a dozen different historical traditions that's quite useful (especially since Shivan ships take their names and classes from demons of all faiths - it was interesting reading up on some of the names that appear in FS2).  Terran ships are a bit of a pain - their classes come from Greek mythology, but the names are derived from dozens of different traditions.  Off the top of my head...

-Lucidity, derived from lucid, clear, etc.  No mythological or literary connection.
-Lysander / Actium - Shakespeare
-Aquitaine - A region in France
-Bastion - reference to a fortress/stronghold
-Enif Station - named after the star, presumably.  Greek letter.
-Warspite - British battleship (Both World Wars)

And the list goes on...

Terran ship names seem to hint at mission outcomes and occurrences, often named as analogies or after similar historical events, places, people, things...  That's about as much rhyme or reason I can generate from them.  Even the NTF ships are pretty good examples of this, the Iceni being the classic example (the Iceni were a very successful tribe in pre-Roman Britain).

To answer the original question though, I generally stick to the historical context for Terran ships, and rely heavily on Greek mythological figures (Gods and otherwise).

And on a side note, anyone know a FREDer who'd be interest in compiling a pre-written and "screenplayed" campaign?

[NGTM-1R]

What would that be?

Religious, which helps establish a background with their society. Also trying to include a thematic link in the names between a group flagship and the other ships.

[Vasudan Commander]

-Lucidity, derived from lucid, clear, etc.  No mythological or literary connection.

haha, never thought about it that way, but it sure makes of sense. That mission was hella easy with the AWACS there.

[Slime]

Do not use Qetesh. It is the god of sex.

Uggh. I'm positive one campaign had a shivan cruiser named Yoni... Could it have been Warzone?... Anyway, it cracked me up when I saw it.

[Herra Tohtori]

Derelict uses Cthulhu mythos names for Shivan ships, such as Nyarlathotep. They work rather fine IMO, and there's a whoel bunch of them in Wikipedia. Other fictional mythologies such as Middle-earth mythologies (GTD Ilúvatar, )

For Terran ships, regions of Earth are always a safe bet. True, it's used in many scifi universes but it just makes sense and the ship names are believable that way, so I don't see any reason why it shouldn't or couldn't be used in FS2 universe too. Another good source for terran ship names is obviously current navy warship names of different nationalities. And several mythologies also offer quite a bit of interesting ways to include hidden references and stuff like that. Using names from Irish mythology, Norse, German, Gaul, Indo-European, Sanskrit, Kalevala, perhaps even North American or Australian aborigine mythologies could be plausible - and certainly Christian mythos also offers a whole bunch of name candidates, but using for example names of archangels for Elysium transports might not suite the context - then again, it could be a hidden reference to something from behalf of the campaign maker. But names such as GTD Daghda, Belenos or Cúchulainn just beg to be used.

And there's also the method of picking random words of some rare or fictional language (such as Sindarin, Finnish, Quenya and whatever you can think of). If it sounds good it usually passes, but it might be best to at least try and check the meaning of the word, though. Naming a destroyer GTD Ohramallas or GTC Humala might sound almost plausible to an english speaker, but for those who know Finnish they might cause slight amused chuckles. From English words, tere are some obvious adjectives and nouns that pass well as ship names, too - such as Impedance,

Famous people's names are excellent for Terran craft too. Science cruisers seem to be using that naming scheme a lot, but I don't see why it couldn't be used in other ships as well. Perhaps famous artists, writers and composers could work best as civilian ships - passenger liners and such.

Using only one kind of naming scheme throughout a campaign might become a little boring, so I guess it's best to use all kinds of name inventing strategies. The more variety the better in my opinion.

[Dysko]

Famous people's names are excellent for Terran craft too. Science cruisers seem to be using that naming scheme a lot, but I don't see why it couldn't be used in other ships as well. Perhaps famous artists, writers and composers could work best as civilian ships - passenger liners and such.

In FS2 they are used also on military ships: GTD Delacroix and GTC Congreve, for example.

[AlphaOne]

Cool just say some of the names where do they come and what do they mean! I think i will use some of them!

[aldo_14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix - Eugene Delacroix, French painter whose paintings include romantic, Revolution themed one (seems a bit odd... until perhaps you consider the painter Bosch...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve - Congreve - either William La Touche Congreve (WW1 Victoria cross - probably unlikely due to obscurity), William Congreve (inventor - of rockets) or William Congreve (playright and poet)

[KappaWing]

For Shivan ships I often use something sinister sounding or enigmatic, such as Dzul or Sorzam, or i use villans from novels or games (Voldemort, or Nergal)

For Terran stuff I often use American Civil War, WW2 or Greek and Roman references, and something egyptian sounding for Vasudans.