EVE General Discussion

My names are all over the place.

Mammoth fit for hauling: Auroch (ancient cattle-like species used by the Norse)
Thrasher fit for ratting and salvaging: Belt Runner
Maelstrom with a full rack of arties: Broadside
Cyclone, it looks like a: Truncheon. (I tried flanged mace, but it wasn't as sexy.)
Rifter fit for exploration in lo-sec: Low Profile
Noctis fit for mission salvaging: Wreck Cleaner

And my mining alt, intentionally silly:
Retriever: Thumper (mining, spice mining in Dune, devices they used were thumpers, to draw off sand worms. Also, that rabbit)
Mammoth: Teddy Bear
Rifter for salvaging: Fleet Fox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_%28A%29

linking doesn't work, copy yourselfs.

I use names from Iain M Banks' Culture SF novels...

Machariel - Merciful Death
Sleipnir - Quick to Judgment
Myrmidon - Architeuthis / Gratuitous Violins / Blambo
Ishtar - Incandescant Sage
Vexor - USS Consolation / Antigravitas
Phobos - Case of the Mondays
Arazu - Meadowlark Lemon
Megathron - Bozo Nightmare
Rifter - Platitudes
Incursus - Inky / Blinky / Pinky / Clyde
Enyo - Clyde's Revenge
Orca - Expensive Willy
Retriever - Gold Jerry!
Proteus - Plunger of Damocles
Dominix - Jeremiah / Hypnotoad
Guardian - Iron Maiden

The Drake is called Drake, the Tengu is called Tengu, the Ashimmu is called Ashimmu... You can see the pattern, yeah?

Not really a pattern, I barely buy ships so most of them get whimsical names...

My Apocalypse is called "Primum nocere". I too owed an Apo called "Tenacious *****"
My Golem is called "Poison Arrow"
My Nightmare is called "Nightmare" (yay, I was really inspired that day)
My Machariel is called "I wanna be your dog" (I decided the name months before i already had the ship)
My Noctis is the "Warm Muffin"
My Bestower (recently defunct, RIP) was the "Turtle Mama"
My Orca is the "Southern Comfort"

I too owe an Arbitrator called "Sexy Platypuss", a Harbinger called "Mikuru" (last and only survivor of a row of ships named after Haruhi Suzumiya's buddies) and some other ships i don't recall.

Generally whatever pops in my mind. More expensive ships get more time for naming. There might or might not be something hidden in the names depending on how creative I feel. For example the rokh Laevateinn can be either a fiery blade of destruction, or: rails do damage comparable to poking, poking is done best with a stick and laevateinn is literally translated (IIRC) a damage stick.

Small cheap ships that I won't use much typically get names such as Loltraktor, Imp's cute ballkick or simply Cormorant s (for salvaging). Medium-sized and not trivially cheap ships get names a bit less lolworthy, like my series of drakes named as Stalker and number + a letter for what purpose it is. Bigger, more expensive ships and the ones I spend a lot of time with get unique names, though a number might be still there. For a few examples there's Clairvoyance (tengu), The shriek of Nue (navy scorpion) and Wonky Donkey (charon).

I take the first letter of the ship name and think of the worst name I can starting with that.

Fran
Randy
Gary
Paul
Simon
etc.

You can name ships? All mine are called Darth A30NZ's _____________

Depends what they're used for:
Discogeddon -> 70's
Dramiel -> Mr. Taliban
Neutlegion -> sucky sucky 5$
and so on