Overwriting equation labels

Suppose an equation would be labelled automatically by latex as (3.1) (or or something similar), but, for whatever reason, you'd like to label it by a different name. For example you might want to label it (*). How is this possible? And if this isn't possible, then can you manually do something to make it appear like a label? What I mean is, can you write your equation and then right align something like " (*) " ? I can't seem to do this without messing up the spacing of the equation itself. Thanks for any help!

You can say \notag or \nonumber to remove the label. To provide your own label, use \tag{text} or \tag*{text}. The starred form does not add parentheses around text.