Names of Planets/Space Stations?

[CharonsHelper]

Hey Play-grounders!

I'm currently writing a sci-fi RPG. It's going well - and I really like the system. My main issue... names!

I totally suck at naming stuff. I'm horrible with names. I've kinda cheated with most of the names of alien species by using a combination of homages to early creators of the fiction (Ex: The synthetic/AI species are the Capeks - since Peter Capek coined the term "robot") or just run a basic descriptor of them through a English-to-Latin translator.

But - I don't really think that I can do that for the names of star-systems & space stations.

Do you guys have any cool name ideas that you don't mind me stealing? (They don't necessarily need to be what the aliens call them. They could be short-hand that humans - the newcomer hicks of the starlanes - call them.)

[Honest Tiefling]

I dunno why, but Greek/Roman (or variants there of) names seem to be popular. Such as Illium, Talosia, Hyperion, Pallas, Tethys, etc.

If the humans are lazy, just give a system one name and then number the planets within. If you were in a hurry, you'd do the same. Then again, if we model planet naming after dinosaur naming, perhaps you could just name the planet after famous people of the setting or whoever found it first.

Or to be PC with the local aliens, they tried to adapt their name into the human name and just start smashing your keyboard and put some vowels in. Nicakala?

[oudeis]

(Minor nitpick: Karel Capek was the originator of the term.)

As for your question, this might help with naming stars, assuming you're game is set more-or-less in our reality. If you want to throw politics in the mix, consider using some Chinese, Japanese, or Russian cosmology to hint at the divisions in your setting. For space stations and bases, using the names of famous astronomers, astronauts, and spacecraft is a reliable convention. Yuri Kondratyuk and Sergei Korolev both merit a place on that list, both for their achievements and for what they suffered as a result of their genius. :doffs hat:

[CharonsHelper]

(Minor nitpick: Karel Capek was the originator of the term.)

I feel the dumbs. I looked it up at the time - I swear!

As for your question, this might help with naming stars, assuming you're game is set more-or-less in our reality. If you want to throw politics in the mix, consider using some Chinese, Japanese, or Russian cosmology to hint at the divisions in your setting. For space stations and bases, using the names of famous astronomers, astronauts, and spacecraft is a reliable convention. Yuri Kondratyuk and Sergei Korolev both merit a place on that list, both for their achievements and for what they suffered as a result of their genius. :doffs hat:

Well - since humans don't control much (they were brought to the starlanes to be the muscle for a economically/technologically dominant species) probably not named after astronomers. But the mix of cosmologies might work. I am going out of my way to point out that the Space Dog PCs come from many countries (making sure to have my iconic art of each class be a mix etc.).

[Coventry]

I tend to use the names of towns from other places - such as googling for "Small towns in Ohio", and then just picking through the list for ones that sound interesting.

To make the neighboring systems sound like they belong to a different race/government, move to "small towns of Germany" or "small towns of Laos".

[Lord Torath]

Look at how US warships are named: States, cities, and admirals. Do the same for your space stations. Whoever builds the station will likely name it after something or someone from their history (Babylon) or geography (Djakarta). If Earth is relatively united (UNSC), then you'll have names from many cultures on the planet. If there are still different factions, each faction will likely choose from their own history.

[CharonsHelper]

Look at how US warships are named: States, cities, and admirals. Do the same for your space stations. Whoever builds the station will likely name it after something or someone from their history (Babylon) or geography (Djakarta). If Earth is relatively united (UNSC), then you'll have names from many cultures on the planet. If there are still different factions, each faction will likely choose from their own history.

Well - humans a small minority across the galaxy in my game. (though they're basically the badasses of the galaxy) So not much would be named by them.

I suppose I could do that & just say that those are just the names humans have given them.

[Lord Torath]

Well - humans a small minority across the galaxy in my game. (though they're basically the badasses of the galaxy) So not much would be named by them.

I suppose I could do that & just say that those are just the names humans have given them.

But other civilizations might use a similar naming scheme, naming ships/stations/planets after things in their own histories.

[Beleriphon]

Well - humans a small minority across the galaxy in my game. (though they're basically the badasses of the galaxy) So not much would be named by them.

I suppose I could do that & just say that those are just the names humans have given them.

Keep in mind that we've named dang near everything we can see and think is even slightly interesting (in space its everything). So humans will likely have names for things in its something as uncreative a SDSSp J153259.96-003944.1 (that's a real thing BTW) which just describes where the object was first observed and its sky position from that observation point.

Actual names of planets, if they have on, are likely driven by the local name roughly articulated into a human language.

Spaceships are easy, most cultures follow a specific style of naming. Ships are named after important things, the lead ship of a class names the class of ship. The USA for example names aircraft carriers after presidents (CV and CVN) there is a USS Ronald Reagan for example (there are four exceptions, USS Enterprise, and three others named after important figures in the US Navy), ballistic missile submarines (SSBN/SSGN ships) are names after states, attack subs (SSN) are named for US cities but it does depend on the class of sub (Los Angeles-class subs for example are name based on US cities).

One could take the Mass Effect route and just name things with a set of guidelines. Dreadnoughts are all named for mountains (Everest-class or Kilimanjaro-class dreadnoughts), cruisers are named for cities (SSV Hong Kong for example), frigates are named based on battles (SSV Normandy), and carriers are named for famous people (for example there are SSV Benjamin Davis and the SSV Hawking).

Russian ships as an alternative follow a fairly straight forward method. Battleships are named after battles, former rules (Pyotr Veliky), Saints, generals or previously used famous ship names. Cruisers get names for mythic figures, admirals (Admiral Makarov) or gemstones. Destoyers are usually adjectives like Stormy or Brave, while frigates generally trend towards birds. And submarines are named for animals, there was a Shchuka-class (which is the Russian word for the fish pike) attack sub named Vepr which is Russian for wild boar, and another named Gepard (Cheetah in English).

[The Glyphstone]

There's always the "New [Place On Earth]" route. Humans like being reminded of home.

[lylsyly]

I just googled elf name generator and hit the button:

Acalohoan Cometfinder
Anotirp Rootkiller
Arehgolt Tearmaster
Cariac Dewzephyr
Egesalalg Darkdrum
Ehitolaac Drummolder
Enliut Songdruid
Etoheeb Strikefollower
Gabderr Strongsong
Ganuloab Wisescribe
Gireuh Ivorysmile
Hohdaab Pathhare
Ihaninaul Glittergleam
Nahasratl Cinderpacer
Odilhaur Falldancer
Ohinanacd Battlehare
Otagleah Dawnfinder
Redehobc Spellfang
Sanosaeh Shadowdreamer
Tahalnain Breezemaker


Eliminate the last names and there you go , don't forget the other races as well.

Problem Solved!

[CharonsHelper]

But other civilizations might use a similar naming scheme, naming ships/stations/planets after things in their own histories.

True - but for that to be coherent - I'd have to invent entire cohesive histories for each of the alien species!

[Flickerdart]

Planets in real life tend to be called things like HD 11964 Ab - their star's alphanumeric designation plus a (Greek) letter. The lucky ones - like Rho Coronae Borealis b - have a star with a name (there are many of these, so feel free to use real ones). A pilot on an intra-system journey might say he's "headed to gamma," implying the third planet in the system without the need to name the star explicitly.

Space stations are likely military-owned, and have their own alphabet soup designation.

[Beleriphon]

I've always wanted to have a bunch of ships named for Norse deities, or other entities.

[CharonsHelper]

Planets in real life tend to be called things like HD 11964 Ab - their star's alphanumeric designation plus a (Greek) letter. The lucky ones - like Rho Coronae Borealis b - have a star with a name (there are many of these, so feel free to use real ones).

Yeah - but that's (in my opinion) mostly because only about 10k pro astronomers in the world and a double smattering of amateur ones.

Plus - I don't think that having alphanumeric designations would light a fire in people's imaginations like cool names would. Would it have been so impactful if it had been...

Tarkin: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan HD 11964 Ab.

Leia: [shocked] No! Alderaan HD 11964 Ab is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly–

*shrug* Just not the same.

Space stations are likely military-owned, and have their own alphabet soup designation.

In Space Dogs the galaxy doesn't have much in the way of real militaries at all. Other species think that humans having a military command structure is weird/creepy - in part because the vast majority of sentient species are herbivores, and just have a very different outlook. (Maybe not the most likely future - but I designed the setting so that a crew of privateers could thrive & be impactful.)

[Flickerdart]

In Space Dogs the galaxy doesn't have much in the way of real militaries at all.

Any civilization will inevitably produce bureaucracy, and any bureaucracy will inevitably produce serial numbers.

Of course, the locals will quickly come up with an informal name to use, based on local qualities. If there is no central authority, it will be random - you will probably end up with planet names like Planety McPlanetface.

[KillianHawkeye]

I think the best way to go about it will be to take all your major and featured alien species and decide on a real world linguistic root to model their languages on. Then you can just make up fake words that fit the general sound of the language (or use real words if you think you can get away with it). Fake ones are probably better because they can be just a little off and still work fine.

For example, one species can use Italian/Latin sounding names like, let's say... "Torlona" or "Mavici". Just made up off the top of my head, but sounds kinda Italian, right? Another species can have Japanese sounding names, so maybe "Hasko" or "Ataru". And others as necessary. There are enough different sounding languages to probably have you covered unless you invented dozens of major species.

Your race of synthetics will probably just use an alphanumeric code for designations. I'd decide on a system of prefixes that can be used to designate different types of things (space stations, planets, different ship classes), but maybe don't make the prefixes obvious. Don't start all planetary designations with the letter P, instead maybe use C because that's the first letter in their name. Maybe their homeworld is designated "C9900" while their starbases are something like "U11A5037" and their space ships are like "PV8-55-402T" or whatever. You can even use that last one as a combination, like PV8-55-402T is a shuttle or fighter craft that's stationed aboard the cruiser or carrier PV8-55.

At this point you can do anything because you're making everything up, just be sure to establish some (made-up) guidelines and stick to them so there's a sense of consistency to the universe.



Of course, if the humans already have a decent name for something, they'll probably keep using it even if aliens have a different name for it. Like, if we discovered aliens living over at Alpha Centauri, we'd keep calling it Alpha Centauri even though the aliens call it Regulon 7.

[Lord Torath]

True - but for that to be coherent - I'd have to invent entire cohesive histories for each of the alien species!

Nah. They just need one line of background:
- The Imherstu was named after a Giff army officer at the the battle of the Puriteemrald Ziggurat between the humans and the jackalfolk back in 36748397378458936 BCE (bonus points for getting this refernce).
- Sitrythere Station was named in tribute the Royal Seat (Capitol) of the alien empire in the 3rd Dynasty.
- Moemonae was a minor Bureaucrat who bought his way into an Admiralcy and got a ship named after him.

Earth history is chock full of small skirmishes and engagements that most people have never heard of. I'm sure alien history will be the same. These events are so far back in time, they have no bearing - at all - on the current adventure. But they add a sense of background. Unless your PCs are going to be xeno-anthropologists, they will neither ask nor care about just when or where these places and people existed. No need for an extensive history.

[Honest Tiefling]

True - but for that to be coherent - I'd have to invent entire cohesive histories for each of the alien species!

Maybe one has a great sense of humor. See, the human genome contains a gene known as the Sonic the Hedgehog gene. That's it's name. This race did something similar, because a scientist was so upset at politics getting in the way he/she/it/whatever just slapped on a name and it stuck. Or it was an advertising ploy gone awry. Or that's not even its official name, just the name the entire race uses.

Could mix it up with another suggestion, where it SOUNDS appropriate, but isn't. Such as Planet Forseti, which to a human sounds nice and norse-ish. To the alien race, the scientist got bored and named it after the main character of a flying fluffy thing from his spawn's favorite holo-vid and it sorta stuck.

[The Glyphstone]

In Space Dogs the galaxy doesn't have much in the way of real militaries at all. Other species think that humans having a military command structure is weird/creepy - in part because the vast majority of sentient species are herbivores, and just have a very different outlook. (Maybe not the most likely future - but I designed the setting so that a crew of privateers could thrive & be impactful.)

Apologies for drifting off-topic, but it's worldbuilding and I can't resist.

Shouldn't that be the other way round, from idle curiosity? Pack-hunting predators are rare, the vast majority are solo hunters that can't cooperate effectively. Herbivores are far more likely to move in herds/groups, and they're often quite willing to offer violence as a group against potential threats. The 'typical' herbivore mindset seems quite well-suited accepting a military-style command structure, if a defensively oriented one that's willing to accept the occasional loss if the majority of the herd stays safe. Humans can still be an oddity as one of the very rare predator species that function equally well as individuals or in a pack/group unit.

Remember that privateers require an enemy to be privateering against, and a friend to authorize them to do the privateering (otherwise they're just pirates). That implies interspecies conflicts, which in turn means militaries to do the conflicting when handy privateers or mercenaries aren't available.

[CharonsHelper]

Shouldn't that be the other way round, from idle curiosity? Pack-hunting predators are rare, the vast majority are solo hunters that can't cooperate effectively. Herbivores are far more likely to move in herds/groups, and they're often quite willing to offer violence as a group against potential threats. The 'typical' herbivore mindset seems quite well-suited accepting a military-style command structure, if a defensively oriented one that's willing to accept the occasional loss if the majority of the herd stays safe. Humans can still be an oddity as one of the very rare predator species that function equally well as individuals or in a pack/group unit.

Yes & no. In Space Dogs the herbivores naturally get along as a group more on an instinctual level - so they don't need the same levels of formal institutions that humans do. There are species that have warriors - just not a formal military. (Think the horse raiders of what is now Mongolia when they weren't under a warlord. Sporadic raiding etc under charismatic leaders - but no formal structure, and nothing officially keeping the warriors from leaving when bored etc. Though that's mostly 1 carnivore species. There are a couple of carnivores - humans are the only omnivores - another reason they're freaky.) In addition - the violent herbivores generally aren't the ones with sentience (though some are pets of the sentient species).

For example - the builders (the ones who recruited humanity) dominated their home planet not through violence - but by building. They built an interconnected series of walls by which they slowly penned off all of the predators, eventually enough so that they starved to death. They never had to fight the predators because they walked on top of the walls to build them. (They are more like turtles than anything else on Earth - still having vestigial shells.) Their entire home planet was domesticated by them - unlike Earth where we have left much of it to the chaos of nature.

Remember that privateers require an enemy to be privateering against, and a friend to authorize them to do the privateering (otherwise they're just pirates). That implies interspecies conflicts, which in turn means militaries to do the conflicting when handy privateers or mercenaries aren't available.

The builders are the ones who give them letters of marque - and they're the only species who is in any way monolithic in nature. They aren't authorized against any specific enemy - but more that they're authorized to be mercenaries (sort of deputized). They defend merchants from the occasional pirates (such as the above mentioned raiders - though the raiders aren't from a specific nation per se - making them all but impossible to make war against and wipe out) from the synthetic species which has gone crazy since their master species vanished, or from any of several variants of monstrous aliens which attack those who travel the warp, mostly volucris (hive-mind bug aliens) and immortui (reaver/biological borg) - both of which are thought to be leftover weapons from an ancient war, basically both still on autopilot.

There are organizations - but they're more like guilds than what we'd think of as a nation. Even the builders don't have true borders besides not allowing outsiders onto their home planet.

[Knaight]

Planets in real life tend to be called things like HD 11964 Ab - their star's alphanumeric designation plus a (Greek) letter. The lucky ones - like Rho Coronae Borealis b - have a star with a name (there are many of these, so feel free to use real ones). A pilot on an intra-system journey might say he's "headed to gamma," implying the third planet in the system without the need to name the star explicitly.

On the other hand this doesn't apply to any of the eight closest planets (or Pluto, or said planets moons). Nomenclature for places people actually live or even go to is likely to be very different than that of distant bodies studied by astronomy.

[Jay R]

List of fictional planets

List of fictional space stations

[Wardog]

I once made a random planet name generator (for a text-based Elite-style game I was making in Quick Basic).

It just randomly chose a name length, and randomly chose letters to until it reach that length.

However, the neat trick was that each solar system had (also randomly generated) different rules the length of names and frequency of letters.

You might get one system where all the planet names are massive long strings of vowels, or another where everything is short strings of constonants.

So although the names looked like someone had just grabbed a bunch of Scrabble tiles (as did those in the original Elite), each system had its own naming style, so it looked as though - however bizzare they looked to humans - they must make sense to whatever aliens lived there and named them in their own language.

Plus - I don't think that having alphanumeric designations would light a fire in people's imaginations like cool names would. Would it have been so impactful if it had been...

Tarkin: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan HD 11964 Ab.

Leia: [shocked] No! Alderaan HD 11964 Ab is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly–

*shrug* Just not the same.

Now, if he had instead blown up LV 426, that could have saved a lot of trouble in the future.

[The Vanishing Hitchhiker]

Well - humans a small minority across the galaxy in my game. (though they're basically the badasses of the galaxy) So not much would be named by them.

I suppose I could do that & just say that those are just the names humans have given them.

There might also be accepted translations of place names, like down here on Earth. Even transliteration can get a little sloppy or out of date. In Timothy Zahn's Quadrail series, a space station's name was translated literally into multiple languages, and a series of abstract sculptures named for animals were translated into some from Earth via what each species thought their respective animals symbolized.

[Spartakus]

True - but for that to be coherent - I'd have to invent entire cohesive histories for each of the alien species!

Well, I assume you have defined cultures for your alien races. Your naming scheme should fit that culture.

• A race of warriors would use names of famous battles. By that adopting names from planets of other races.

• A race of scientists could use scientific phenomena. (Black Hole Space Station, SS Solar Eclipse)

• Artificial intelligences would be baffeled by the idea of creative names when an alphanumeric designation is all they need.

• Builders could use the name of the architect, so building something that lasts is a way of immortalizing their names.

[LibraryOgre]

Somewhat related: I had a GM who always named evil wizards after mathematicians, and good wizards after engineers.

I am somewhat disappointed that Lobachevsky didn't have an underling named Lehrer.

[Beleriphon]

Shouldn't that be the other way round, from idle curiosity? Pack-hunting predators are rare, the vast majority are solo hunters that can't cooperate effectively. Herbivores are far more likely to move in herds/groups, and they're often quite willing to offer violence as a group against potential threats. The 'typical' herbivore mindset seems quite well-suited accepting a military-style command structure, if a defensively oriented one that's willing to accept the occasional loss if the majority of the herd stays safe. Humans can still be an oddity as one of the very rare predator species that function equally well as individuals or in a pack/group unit.

Mind you pack hunters like canines, a number of cetacean species, lions, and of course hominids. The important thing to remember is that despite humans dominating this planet our ancestors weren't necessarily apex predators. This requires the following links:

http://imgur.com/gallery/hINj1xf
http://i.imgur.com/qyNKnyb.jpg

[CharonsHelper]

Mind you pack hunters like canines, a number of cetacean species, lions, and of course hominids. The important thing to remember is that despite humans dominating this planet our ancestors weren't necessarily apex predators. This requires the following links:

http://imgur.com/gallery/hINj1xf
http://i.imgur.com/qyNKnyb.jpg

This requires the following links:

http://imgur.com/gallery/hINj1xf
http://i.imgur.com/qyNKnyb.jpg

Actually - while for somewhat different reasons - in Space Dogs humans basically are the badasses of the galaxy. It's near-future because the economically dominant species recruited us because they suck at fighting - trading a slow trickle of technology to Earth nations in return for human recruits.

Maybe I should add the recovering from injuries & stamina things into the system. Keep humans where they are - but lessen it for everyone else. (No major impact on gameplay as all PCs are human. Though with the morality rules making foes run semi-consistently - it'd make the long running battles more advantageous to the PCs - which could be cool.)

[Aeson]

One thing that you might try doing is coming up with a boring vaguely descriptive name for the station and then see if you can do anything interesting with a contraction or corruption of the descriptive name or an acronym for it. For example, Earth Transorbital Transfer Station One (some potential acronyms are ETTSO, ETTSOne, or ETTS1) might become Etson, Etsi, or Etsel if trying to pronounce the acronym, or Edson, Edsi, or Edsel with a slight corruption of the acronym.