I usually come up with the name first, then pick the ship I think fits, but I rename for two reasons:
Ship transfer, whether from myself or someone else, my pilots/accounts have a vague theming for their ships.
I also rename for faction tags, but that's such a common use case across the board that I don't think that's intrinsic to how/why I use it.
One of these days, there will be a clever, stylish and/or funny signature here.
This is still not that day, however.
