How are Flight Names determined?

FlightAware General
1

I am new to flight tracking and have a basic question: How/where do the names for “operating as” come from?

Example: “VGX8” and “Virgin Galactic 8” for this flight

From FlightAware screen:

N348MS

VGX8

Operating as Virgin Galactic 8

ALSO, from the flight log there is flights 5, 7 and 8 so no Virgin Galactic 6 …

so trying to figure out who is labeling the flights and how/why flights might not be numbered in order

Thanks for the information!!!

2

ICAO allocated code.

https://www.planespotters.net/company/Virgin-Galactic

Number is whatever they associate a logged plan to. That may be one off, reused as a commercial route. Or whatever. Comes down to the date/time they logged to pair it with.