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[Skuggen]

My starting expedition leader is always made mayor and baron (assuming he's alive). Doesn't matter if he's got a 'difficult' personality.
I replace dwarf names with full nicknames, with the first name being a fairly normal english one and the last being a basic translation of the dwarf name, but kept consistent for family members in the fort. This is helpful to keep track of which new arrivals I've processed, too.

[StagnantSoul]

That must take forever once you get to the cap. "Eric Talltree."

[Skuggen]

The naming generally takes less time than sorting through their skills and duties. It also makes them easier for me to recognize. When I get an announcement that Eric Talltree has gone insane I usually know right away how bad this is

I tend to play with pretty low population caps, though (50-80).

[Max™]

I do rename the first thirty I let in before raising the pop cap, but I just replace their full names with the direct translation of their dorf names. Workhammer, Claspedmansion, Ivypatterns, and so forth.

[Thisfox]

I've got just a few.

My fort has a large central pillar of up/down staircases, often 3x3, sometimes larger. There might be alternate routes, but they are on the end of long corridors and often marked as restricted: I don't intend them to be used for anything other than emergencies, and they rarely do more than link to levels of crypt or bedroom levels, or something like that. My corridors are two tiles wide, so that it's easy to pass each other, but it's still easy to close the corridor off with two doors.

I must -simply must- give every adult dwarf their own bedroom but I don't bother giving beds to the dwarf children and babies: They go in the transient bedroom, which is a room somewhere central where I've got furniture stockpiles and several set up beds and dormitories. It seems you don't have to make a bed into a dorm to have them sleep in it. The adult dwarf bedrooms are at least 3x3 each, with a bed in the centre, and a cabinet and coffer/chest. The walls are always double thick, and if I can manage it at all, a rock door. The door, coffers and cabinets are always made of a contrasting stone: My current bedrooms are in microcline, and almost all the furniture is diorite or slate, except for a few rooms in slate, which have microcline furniture and doors.

Crypts/mausoleums are dug usually in an ore-bearing area, so that I can just bury the dwarfs in the dug-out ore veins. I have a pile set aside for coffins, slabs and doors, and a masons and craftsdwarfs workshop next to that especially for the "gravediggers". If a dwarf is awarded a tomb (for service, such as mayoring, or because they demanded it, or because I really like their name or something they did) they never loose that tomb: It is theirs and only theirs forever after. I might put statues, stone coffers, and other things in their tomb as well.

My champion, if I have one, always walks with a crutch. If there aren't any dorfs with crutches, I just don't keep a Champion. I never bring, buy or make wooden crutches any more: All the crutches in the fort are made of metal, the heavier the better. I have once successfully had a crutch bearing Champion beat a giant to death with her crutch. It was epic, thankyou to whoever taught me that trick...

I try to never engrave floors, it's ugly. I dislike turning engravings off: I want to be able to see the engravings in some places, like the time someone decided to engrave the election of the mayor all over the dining hall walls, and there were twenty dwarf faces smiling up at me (The dwarf is surrounded by the dwarves...) I like engraved walls, because it's pretty. So I don't engrave the floors, just smooth them, or, if it's a dirt floor, I might manufacture stone or wood floors. And yes, I don't use any custom tilesets, I've got a vanilla copy of DF with no additions like therapist or anything... God I wish I could engrave built walls...

[Shazial]

I don't have too many quirks, just a tiny handful.. for example I feel really awkward embarking on a site without a river. I don't care if the river is under ground or above ground, if it freezes or dries completely out during my game, but in the beginning I just need a river or a brook on the site. ><

I'm also a sucker for symmetry. I tend to dig my levels to follow some sort of a symmetrical pattern. If I dig a hallway and a room on the other side, I need to mirror the size and position of the room on the other side.. that's why I hate running into damp stone and undiggable things.. it ruins my symmetry.

Related to the symmetry I tend to arrange my fortress in a specific manner. First level is the food and agriculture quarter, with stockpiles and workshops of specific type grouped up together, second level is typically two z-levels below, or when I get the first pure stone ground level, and it becomes the wood and stone factory, where all the furniture is produced, then I dig down two levels again, and create the crafts dwarf area, with gem cutters, crafts workshops, clothiers, etc., and then again two z-levels down to create the metal and forge and furnace level. On each level I branch out dwarven accommodation, creating individual rooms for my dwarves.

Last but not least, I always build the tiny dwarf houses the same way. It's a 2x3 room, with bed in the middle, chair and table at left or top, and a chest next to bed, and then a cabinet next to the chest, leaving one empty space in the middle of the room. The noble's rooms are bigger, but otherwise follow the same principle and arrangement of furniture, except the bed and chair+table change places, with the chair and table being in the middle of the room.

[Skuggen]

Yeah, I'm also a big sucker for symmetry and neatness. I've abandoned forts because hitting the caverns interfered with my layout plans

[Zuglarkun]

After attaining a certain degree of self-sufficiency in my forts, i phase out ALL the old furniture for pimped out ☼tower cap☼/ ☼feather wood☼ furniture. Must. Have. Clean pristine white sheets.

[Loud Whispers]

Where else would you put ravens... I mean, I suppose you could bake them into a pie or something?

Precisely! You can't just leave them lying around, that'd be messy.

[boddha]

I like to mod in precious metals to be used for armor and weapons in just about every game I play. I love having a royal guard clad in gold armed with golden weapons.
Other than that I like to embark with really high amounts of plump helmet seeds because I hate job cancellation spams.

[Baffler]

I always give dwarves their own 3x3 rooms, and I always raise a grazer appropriate for the biome (cows, sheep, llamas, camels, horses, and goats are all on the table) and cultivate locally gathered aboveground crops to make sieges actually problematic. No infinite plump helmets here. When I intend to play a long game, I also tend to design the fort so it's mostly "negative space," buildings in or around an artificial cavern several z-levels high.

[Graknorke]

I always make sure my corridors are appropriately branching down in size. So 5 wide up to the depot, then 3 wide to major civic areas like the offices, dining room, sleeping areas, crafting areas etc. Then after that it can be 1 wide to other areas such as mining areas or paths to build things.
If I expand I need to go back through everything and widen the corridors appropriately to keep them in check. Even if that means tearing down walls and having to shuffle rooms across.

[Sergarr]

I nickname all my dwarfs with numbers. Like "1", "2", and so on.

[Itnetlolor]

I nickname all my dwarfs with numbers. Like "1", "2", and so on.

Prefixing dwarves that way isn't a bad idea. Number them by the migrant wave. 0 for the starting 7, and then progress upwards from there.

[shoeless]

My bone carver is akin to my spiritual leader.  The helms, greaves, and gauntlets he resurrects from the slaughtered remains of the Maker's animals are sacred.  No dwarf within the fortress may wear any other helm, greave, or gauntlet unless produced by a dwarf under the madness of the Maker.  Masterwork totems line the barracks and dining hall.

For role playing purposes, my butcher's shop and fishery straddle a small religious hall where my bone carver channels the Maker at a wooden craftsdwarves workshop.

I nickname military dwarfs after their first kill at the new fortress.  My favorite being from a couple fortresses back where my elite hammer squad's militia captain was named Gila Monster.

My fortresses also employ only one engraver.  I like to find a creative dwarf with horrible social skills for this position.  I particularly enjoy looking over a smoothed and engraved level of the fortress knowing one dwarf slaved over each section of floor and wall, chipping away detailed descriptions of the fortress and its history as he/she knows it.