hello all together!
all your comments are very interesting and especially the method of raging deadstar is worth trying
...
for myself i like to roleplay my race a bit so that every ship of one class relates to my races world. all my ships are can be called after geographical spots, cities, races, etc.
for example all my escort ships are called 'Thrithing'. in the progress of the game i add roman numbers I-X to the ships name or if needed a identification code like 'aa'.
i think it is not useful to choose a design name which reflects a description of the ships equipement such as DN Polaron V or LC Sweeper etc. this will tell the enemy too much about the tech level or the strenght of your fleet.