When I create resources they're often tagged with random GUID pieces. Is there a way to have the resources use the exact names I've provided?

Yes - for most resources you can set an explicit

name: myname

property to set a specific name instead of auto-generating a name. For example,

let x = new aws.Resources("puluminame", {
  name: "awsname",
})

Note that doing this will in some cases make it harder to replace the resources without downtime (since the new resources cannot be created before deleting the old one if the provider does not allow two resources with the same "name").

... that worked