Another solution is to create your own symbolic links under /dev. You can write udev rules to do this. Add a file /etc/udev/rules.d/50-local-persistent-disks.rules containing rules like
SUBSYSTEM=="block", ATTRS{model}=="Yoyodine HD9001", \
ATTRS{serial}=="123-456-789", \
SYMLINK+="myfancyname"
To get the info needed for the entry above run
/sbin/udevadm info -a --name=/dev/sdf1 | egrep 'ATTRS{model}|ATTRS{serial}'