Re: How do you name planets?
My handwave for really mundane or lame planet names:
Scouts and surveyors just slap on whatever name occurs to them quickly, because you have to call it something and have something in those blanks on the forms.
They don't expect it to last, as permanent names are set by the Nomenclature Subcommittee Executive Working Group. But the NSCEWG is really a dumping ground for dull drones, chronic bickerers, losers of office power struggles, and other such people the organization has no use for but is unable or unwilling to fire or assassinate. So the official naming gets endlessly delayed.
Meanwhile the people doing actual work on the system just use the "temporary" name.
Eventually a management reform movement comes around and abolishes the NSCEWG, declaring all the temporary names the official permanent ones.
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Burma!
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