All in a name?

I've been doing Trek RP for years but I've done fantasy as well and one thing I have enjoyed more than I probably should is the actual naming of a game or SIM. Typically I come up with several at first or try to find the 'right feeling' name other times. I'm curious how others go about what to me is an often overlooked part of game mgmt.

 

To me it's all about the 'feel' I suppose. It just feels right. I've been doing trek for years and always adored the designs and roles of various ships. A bit of a nerd/gear-head here. There are three parts to the Prometheus-class ship and during my time in Trek I've always favored mythological names, my favorite being a support ship named USS Mjolnir because few know it heh, so I looked for something that had a flavor of a trio. I happened upon the Gorgon sisters' story and ended up with USS Medusa. Two of the sub-hulls are her sisters and one is her child Pegasus. Like the name Shadowlack has a lot of implied tones to me, a possibly dark place where light is hard to find? That would cause a lack of shadow. Or perhaps less of a distinction between light and dark itself? I warned you I love naming things :)

 

I'm terrible with titles. I wanted to give Somnia a much cooler name but I couldn't think of one. And now I feel like Somnia is overlooked because it just doesn't sound like the site to me. It's been the name for 2 years, though, so I don't think it's changing any time soon...

 

If anything just tweak the spelling, you can use more consonants for a visually 'harder' look maybe? i.e. "Sah-Mynia"

 

I've taken a more simple approach with naming my sites. Mostly they've been a quick and simple way for people to know what the content is. The Next Incantation = a post harry potter site. The Last Island = pretty much the last piece of dry land left in the world. I once had a vampire and werewolf site and named it Fangs 'n Fur. Again, nice and easy to remember and tells a bit about the site at the same time.

 

My Trek site is part of Obsidian Fleet, so I inherited it's name: USS Cerberus. That said, it's an AWESOME name so I love it. My Pern site I wanted to make it simple and obvious, so it's just 11th Pass Pern. I'm lazy....

 

Usually when I've had sims I've inherited them, there's not much catchy about Starbase 332 for example. That being said, Pegasus Fleet uses a naming convention for most of its ships so most of them make sense (although people can obviously submit their own if they're so inclined). For example, our Defiants are all named after snakes.

That's always handy when naming ships en masse but when you're putting it together for one game it can be tough. I've always tended to have a wee core of people who I'm starting the game up with and we usually come to a decision between us. Although when it comes to NPC starships, you can't go far wrong with Scottish scientists!

 

Ship naming is a particular fondness of mine. :)

I've always felt that a vessel's name should reflect the ship herself. We've seen Voyager, Enterprise and even Deep Space 9 have their own hints with just a name. When I began the research for the current SIM I am on I decided on class first. I've always had a fondness for mythology, mainly greek and norse, and with the antagonistic mind I had for the ship's missions I ended up at Medusa. Three Gorgon sisters, three sub-hulls though I had to dub one Pegasus since the combined ship got first dibs ;)

I agree with the use of Scottish NPCs too, the word 'bloody' is a great non-profanity :D

 

I was on another SIM and helped start an NPC named 'USS Mjolnir'. Oh so fun getting people to spell -that- right :D

 

Naming things (characters, titles, locations etc.) is the hardest things for me. Sometimes, just sometimes, a name will present itself pleasingly. But when it comes to naming whole games I am a wreck. It's the first thing people see and so I always try to find one that fits either the feel, setting or plot. I prefer names that are relevant to the game in some fashion. Like most things, it starts with a list. A few names that I like the sound of normally. Then I whittle it down to whichever one seems to fit the best. Or the one that just sort of shouts at me that it's the right one the most.

 

I used to be a huge stickler for off the wall game names; Tainted Purity, Whispering Tears, and Wolf Song all come to mind, but what really amuses me is that the name I created when I was 10 has held true so long, and has never been changed. I tried to change it once, and faced a RIOT! xD By Tooth and Claw Dragons remains the same.

 

I agree it can all be in a name. However, I also don't like coming up with some awesome phrase only to find out it's being used by some other site, game, etc. For that reason I often choose pretty bland, generic titles that cover the genre as a whole. Not entirely happy with them, but rather have a single word than steal someone's title.

For example, considered naming my sci fi site Terran Twilight. But that's taken. Also considered Attack Vector, but that's the name of a mobile game. So I went with plain old Vector. :P

 

What I usually do; since my name coming up skills are -9000 is to ask myself what the content is about. Right, so if it is a graphics website that caters to renders I would do something like gfxrenders or some such. I would think that there are options like that out there.

 

I like play on words but I also prefer sites that have an over reaching theme. Our site is Turn A Blind Eye (aka Blind Eye) and the premise is that the human population does not know of the supernatural. Its not the most clever thing I've ever managed but I think it suits.

 

i pick a name that fits the roleplay that i'm creating. or whatever sounds good