To what extent do you give an ally spirit (yours or a player's) a distinct personality? Other than names, what other traits do you use to define an ally's personality?

Edit: and any double entendre is intentional

You design it to a certain format, of course you name it.

I recall once coming up with an Ally Spirit for a Shaman who converted to Hermeticism (Long role-playing story there) and was constantly trying to convince it's master that magic was a logical ruled thing and that he should give up following Cat and become a Mage.

Well, I'm trying to make a Great Mother Shaman who believes in faeries. Mainly because the free spirit who teaches him takes on the form of a human-sized faerie. But seriously, he's going to do the Familiar Ordeal ASAP, so he can have a faerie all of his own.

Then SURGE him into a windling!!!

That's Evil ®

But not all familiars designed to personalities, even the intensely identitied ones, have names as such. The far-too-many-karma one who sometimes chooses to answer to my major PC has none. When talking about him, it's "the bird" (currently only form is that of a firebird), when talking to him, no name at all, or "you", or "bird".

I am always of the opinion that an ally should be fully fleshed out in as many respects as possible - personality is very important since, along with how it is treated, this will determine how it serves you and how it behaves if it is ever freed.

I have been hankerin' for a while to make an ally with the form of a motorcycle, as in Ragnarok (Talon's Ally, Aracos). I think it's a smart idea and, if you progress it, you can quickly end up with a wonderful toy... think about it: Three dimensional movement, immunity to normal weapons and never runs out of gas. Sheesh, we could make KITT from Night Rider! Muahahahahaha!!!!!

Unless you get it the movement power, the spirit will be a very slow motorcycle/car/gyrocopter/etc.

I was making examples, Herald, not a blueprint...

Now, would the hard-top cabriolet mod count as another form..........?

I'm pretty sure KITT would be better designed as a tweaked Sports Car with a Robotic-Pilot 5 drone with all the works and a Personafix in its Autosoft Interpretation System.

Yes, but would such a car be more or less fun than a similar vehicle that can appear out of nowhere to give you a ride?

Wouldn't be like KITT though, which is my point.

Having a car as an ally spirit form is cool by me. I even have an Ancients ganger named Prospero who created an ally spirit named Caliban for the sole purpose of having a bike in that fashion (at which point it functions just like a Suzuki Aurora unless using Three Dimensional Movement or other similar powers when its ally spirit attributes and speed kick in). I just think KITT would be designed better as a real car than a spirit.

The "Yes, I name all the things I sleep with" Option left an odd question in my mind. If a spirit got pregnant due to sex with a metahuman or vice versa, how would the baby turn out?

Good start.

Dikoted?

With 2 smartlinks?

Latest ally;

Deathkiss (props to the person who can identify where that's from)

weapon focus and ally.
Homonculous inhabiting a bastard sword body.
Ally Powers;
Aid power
Inhabiting
Sense link
Sorcery
Telepathic link
3-D movement (because it's so cool to have a sword that comes when you call ).

The blade is an amber color from high ammounts of orichalcum used in the blades construction. A topaz is set in the hilt and one side, with a gold seal on the other that bears the inscription; "Death is the softest kiss." She's carried in a leather and chain mail sheath.

Personality: Female. Treated as if a daughter. She's only a few months old, so time will tell what kind of true pernoality develops. Can see her becoming quite militant since she is a sword though.

Never had an ally spirit, as I usually GM, but all the ones played under me have had personalities that form up.

Had several, a very memorable one (which wasn't in SR, so it wasn't really an ally spirit, but the idea still holds) was where the spirit was smarter than the summoner. The shaman was an into-the-fray kinda person whose only tactic was full frontal assault, the spirit, however, was smart, tactical, and perceptive... and would constantly try to coerce, convince, or confuse the character into not getting them both killed. The ally'd go as far as to try talking to the other group members and coordinating their strategy around the walking blitzkrieg that was the mage.
Sometimes it worked, but it was a workout. I let the character play her own ally spirit that time, because of the unique situation, and the character being a dern good roleplayer.

Usually, however, I play the spirit for my players, it makes it a bit harder for them, but also a bit easier. My girlfriend was relatively new to SR and definitely new to having an ally spirit, and she saw a physad on the astral plane, and told her ally to go fight him while she tried to handle some other stuff (the group was, as usual, in over their heads), I knew what she meant, and so did the ally, but a force 3 ally knows better than to engage an astral physad in melee. So I had the spirit fight with spells and such, where the player would have only found out the flaw in this after she had rolled her spirits attack and the counterattack had left her with one very dead ally.
It also allows some funny bits. an ally just a few hours old was on a run, and the group was hauling ass in a van down the freeway after killing their target.
Mage, "Anariel, check and see if anyone's following us."
[ally goes astral and peeks through door]
Ally, "Yeah, lots of people."
Mage, "Crap!"
Physad, "How many?"
Ally, "I didn't know I was supposed to count them... definitely over 50 cars though."
Physad, "Crap!"
Mage, "50! are you sure?"
Ally, "Yeah, I looked behind us and there were a ton of cars back there, all going the same direction we are..."

If you haven't guessed it, they're on the interstate in rush hour traffic. so yeah, there's tons of cars behind you, going the same direction, at the same speed, and to someone a few hours old, that could be considered "following."