Planet Names Question

[Pat Payne]

Hey there!

It took me long enough, but I finally got around to getting a hard copy of the ilClan book, and something struck me about the story in the beginning ("Emerald Heart," if I remember correct). In there, Mars is described as "Terra IV". I wasn't sure if this was a mistake or if there is a naming convention I'm not aware of, because I thought the planet would have been numbered by the star (making Mars "Sol IV"). When naming planets in a system, are they generally named by the chief inhabited planet or by the star?

[Paul]

You're pretty much right. BT is slightly different in the sense that it seems a planet gets a name which then also becomes the sun's name, but then the official indicator is usually adjusted based on that.
In the case of the Terran system, it appears as 'Terra' on the map, not Sol. So the fourth planet in the Terra system would be Terra iV.

Likely a split between how astrologers would do it, and how people in early space flight would handle it, so the colloquialism won out in the end.
Where do you need to go sir?
- New Earth.
Oh, I do believe you mean Tau Ceti IV, don't you, sir?
- Yeah, you know what I mean, you pedantic bureaucrat. How about I ask your manager.

[Pat Payne]

Thanks!

[DarkISI]

Its also a lot easier to come up with a name for a planet that will then be used for both the system and the planet. Having to come up with multiple names for one system would be ludicrous. We are talking about thousands of systems here, we would have to create tens of thousands of names for all systems and planets...

[Paul]

Its also a lot easier to come up with a name for a planet that will then be used for both the system and the planet. Having to come up with multiple names for one system would be ludicrous. We are talking about thousands of systems here, we would have to create tens of thousands of names for all systems and planets...

You busy or something? ;)

It's easy to come up with more names. Most of the 2,000 planet/system names were picked with little to no consideration at all. Boosting that to 4,000 or even 10,000 would be a piece of cake.
A stronger move would've been to reduce the number of total planets by a factor of 10. Maybe even 50. Same with the average population of the remainder. But it is what it is.

[BaachicLitNerd]

Research and fact check to keep geographic details consistent across the whole 40 year corpus of BattleTech is a complicated (but rewarding) enough process as is. A surprising number of worlds/systems already have multiple names for stars, secondary planets, relevant installations, habitable moons, continents,  cities, and historical names for all of the above which have changed due to in-universe historical events. Though it might be more technically accurate, adding an additional standard layer of complexity by adding distinct star names where they do not already exist would provide little to no narrative benefit over the status quo.

To put it more simply, the shorthand convention of "name on map = name of primary planet" is useful for both players and writers to keep things straight.