OneTaskBy Tim King · Updated
Generation Ship Name Generator
Hopeful Names, Arks, Founders and Deck Names for Long Voyages
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How the Generation Ship Name Generator works
This generation ship name generator names the ships that take centuries to arrive: hopeful names such as the Long Patience, arks such as Ark Seven, founder names such as the Tsiolkovsky Expedition, and the decks people live on, such as Orchard Ring or the Keel Quarter.
What the generation ship name generator gives you
A generation ship launches with one crew and arrives with their great-grandchildren, so its name has to mean something to people who never chose it. Hopeful names are virtues, the Endurance or the Long Promise, because a ship that slow runs on hope. Arks borrow the flood story and number themselves, since there are usually several. Founder names honour a pioneer of spaceflight or the person who paid for the voyage. Deck names are what the passengers actually say every day, the Orchard Ring or Fore Deck, and after a century they read like neighbourhoods.
Names that change over the voyage
Generation ship stories, from Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky to Aurora and Wayfarers, love the drift between the launch and the arrival. A ship named the Promise may be called just the Ship by the fifth generation, and the decks may become villages with their own customs. Name the deck districts with care, because they will do more work in the story than the ship's name.
Companion generators
Name the passengers with the sci-fi surname generator, the computer that keeps them alive with the AI name generator and the colony they finally found with the space colony name generator.
FAQ
What is a generation ship?
A generation ship is a slow starship that takes longer than a human lifetime to reach its destination, so the people who arrive are descendants of the people who left. It differs from a sleeper ship, whose passengers sleep through the trip.
What are famous generation ships in fiction?
The Vanguard from Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky, the Ship from Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, the Exodus Fleet from Becky Chambers' Wayfarers, and the Axiom from WALL-E. Most carry hopeful, slightly ironic names.
Can I use these names for my story?
Yes. The names are ordinary virtue words, invented numbers and surnames of real spaceflight pioneers, which are free to use. Avoid repeating a famous fictional ship exactly if you want readers to see it as your own.
See also: all Sci-fi tools, People, Fantasy & RPG, Culture & Language, Online & Social, Business & Brand, Places & Things.
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