I use plain white heavy card stock. I write their names in black marker and place them on desks. When they arrive for the first day of school they have crayons on their desks and they can begin to decorate their name plate. It keeps kids busy while I greet parents and students. It also teaches me something about the kids (which ones don't like to color or prefer things with the stark black and white) I laminate them at lunch time. These usually last the entire year.
If you have Print Shop loaded on your computer once you download and save the name plate, you can edit it anyway you like including adding names. I changed mine from a Print Shop file to PDF because most don't have Print Shop.
I do the same as tbell as well. I like that I do not have to spend too much money (only for the cardstock, which is pretty inexpensive) and the kids can put their flavor into it.