There is probably 2 points wrapped up here:

1) The ability to rename content to avoid immersion breaking generated names.
2) The ability to rename content so the player can reference it quickly.

The later can probably be handled with a log system or nicknaming function (Fable 2?). The former I could personally do without - the odd funny name here or there just enriches the world in my view. If you are going to allow renaming, it might help players to include a brief paragraph on the history and context of the content they are renaming. I almost never pick anything but the default name for things when I am given the choice - how do I know what would be a suitable name without some sort of contextual information to work with?

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Original post by theOcelot Sounds fine to me, especially if I'm the discoverer of the planet. People who don't want to change the names can just... not. If you hide it right, most people will go blissfully unaware of the feature's existence.

That's like what was done with the soldier's names in the original X-COM. I didn't know you could change the soldier's names until my second play through. I always kept the original name, but I'd tack a letter code on the end so I could easily see my designated role for them (basically who was earmarked for leadership positions and who were the redshirts).

I think the same sort of thing as done with X-COM would work fine for a space 4X game. Keep the original name by default, but if the player wants they can click on the name in an info screen and change it. If it doesn't change the game mechanics in a noticeable way (such as if you've got adventure game puzzles and the name is a meaningful clue), it won't hurt. I'm not sure why most games fix stuff like player character names and looks after character creation rather than allowing modification if the player isn't happy.

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Original post by Sandman I don't have the right to rename Uranus to something less "offensive". Why should my character have that ability?

Now that is right funny and I didn't even think of that real life example.

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It also means the player can't choose to rename every planet to "Arse". [grin]

Ooops. Or this one. Although I've always thought that players who wanted to inject silliness into their world should have the right to do so, starting at a minimum with their own character name. After all, they have to live with it.

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Original post by Diodor There is a serious issue here. That names _matter_ any one who's read Tolkien or browsed through a Royal Navy list of ships knows. I can't think of any games that shine in this regard other than the ancient Lords of Midnight. Names in a procedurally generated game seem doomed to be arbitrary and meaningless - and whatever meaning attaches to a name would be lost when starting the game over.

I agree with this to a point. Names for ships and worlds, at least in human space, need to have some contextual linkage that connects character to history. But it's the rivers, ranges, lakes, oceans, points, peaks and towns that the PCG is meant to deal with, particularly on worlds that are supposed to be alien civilizations.

I don't expect players to remember all of this stuff but I've long been irked by how poorly civilization is portrayed in games-- more like hollywood backlots with fake buildings. A wealth of names, even fake ones, should give the player anchor points even if they can't remember them a day or week later.

Toward your idea of meaning and not being able to come up with things I wanted to say that I've been thinking of a sort of auto-suggestion mechanism that dovetails with the faction you're keeping company with. So you might get mythology from academics, egocentric name/number combos from corporate folk and transcendental terminology from pious faction members. (This would be similar to Alpha Centauri or Civ city name suggestions)