Naming A Starship

[Edward Jellico]

What names would you like to be seen be used?
What names have you liked?
Are there any names you hated?

One ship name that doesn't seem to fit the Starfleet ethos is the USS Zhukov. No doubt he was an influential Marshall, however, he was very ruthless, had no problem throwing away lives and served a totalitarian regime. Seems strange that a Federation starship would be named after him.

I have no issue with other navies using that name, it just seems strange for Starfleet.

 

[marlboro]

They should just name them all Rio Grande. That way they wouldn't ever have to worry about replacing them.

 

[Timo]

...With "controversial" names, we can always argue they were not given by Starfleet originally. Rather, somebody else named a famous vessel after a bad guy, and Starfleet then named its ship after this older ship. Starfleet didn't come up with the names Enterprise or Saratoga or Yamato or Hood, either, after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MacLeod]

Many possible names could cause offense to some party or other.

 

[F. King Daniel]

USS FUCKING COOL

 

[1001001]

USS FUCKING COOL

Tilly Class

 

[Kor]

More names from the lesser-known worlds of the Federation.

Kor

 

[Kilana2]

USS Titanic

Without sufficient lifeboats ehm pods.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

One ship name that doesn't seem to fit the Starfleet ethos is the USS Zhukov. No doubt he was an influential Marshall, however, he was very ruthless, had no problem throwing away lives and served a totalitarian regime. Seems strange that a Federation starship would be named after him.

I have no issue with other navies using that name, it just seems strange for Starfleet.

If could be after Anatoly Zhukov, the man who discovered the cure for cancer, or the test pilot of the first impulse engine, or the Captain of the Earth flagship during the Romulan War. With over 300 years of "history" still to happen then there are many options for names of human origin.

Personally, I'd love to see less human-centric names, after all Earth is just one planet among 150+ that make up the Federation, so it seems a little odd that that isn't reflected in their starships.

 

[Nyotarules]

Personally, I'd love to see less human-centric names, after all Earth is just one planet among 150+ that make up the Federation, so it seems a little odd that that isn't reflected in their starships.

I blame lazy writing. USS Intrepid would not be a name the Vulcan race would choose, unless they took it over from the humans and just kept the name

 

[publiusr]

USS Auriga is a nice name

 

[Admiral2]

It's not any specific names that I want so much as proper adherence to a naming convention. I don't care how famous the name is, a Galaxy-class should not be named Enterprise. Neither should a Sovereign. And naming Intrepid-classes Voyager and Bellerophon just says "I give no f***s about naval tradition." Names of subsequent ships should have some bearing on the name of the first ship of the class, so you know exactly what type of ship you're talking about without needing pictures or detailed descriptions.

The only type this is done for in canon is the runabout. All of these are named after rivers. Great. So...you just need to brush up on geography...every M-class planet's geography that is...

 

[Push The Button]

There was a shuttle assigned to Enterprise-D named Von Braun. Wernher von Braun was a brilliant rocket engineer and visionary, and arguably may have been the most important person working in the American space program in its heyday. He was also a former SS officer and a member of the Nazi party. Though it was never seen onscreen, was naming a shuttle after him a mistake, a bad decision, perhaps in poor taste considering the history?

 

[GNDN18]

USS Boaty McBoatface

 

[Ethros]

You could just say thought that the USS Zhukov was named after John Zhukov, the hero of World War 3. Or Brian Zhukov, captain of the USS Skywalker who repelled a Tholian invasion in 2317. Or Christine Zhukov who invented grav plating in the late 21st century...

I know it obviously was named for him in the show, but just saying in universe who's to say about anything
Why would Starfleet most of their ships from people only 400 years ago plus

It seemed odd to have the USS Hathaway (TNG: Peak Performance), presumably named after Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway. But you could just say it was anyone called Hathaway in the next 350 years. Maybe our Anne Hathaway does something amazing at some point in the near future..

 

[maneth]

There was a shuttle assigned to Enterprise-D named Von Braun. Wernher von Braun was a brilliant rocket engineer and visionary, and arguably may have been the most important person working in the American space program in its heyday. He was also a former SS officer and a member of the Nazi party. Though it was never seen onscreen, was naming a shuttle after him a mistake, a bad decision, perhaps in poor taste considering the history?

I doubt that. General attitudes in Germany during WW2 must have reflected Nazi ideology to some extent, but AFAIK there's no evidence von Braun subscribed to the opinions of the Nazis once he was in the US. I suspect that many people who weren't wholehearted followers of the Nazi ideology were members of the party, simply to advance their careers. That was certainly the case of many members of the Communist parties of the various Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War.

 

[Timo]

One might further argue that USS Mengele would be fine because in the subsequent two or three centuries, such bad shit happened that the difference between Mengele and, say, Oberth or Churchill or Pasteur became infinitesimal in comparison. Who would bother sorting out the petty villains and half-baked heroes of the distant past when the modern argument rages over the deeds of Zora and Zee-Magnees?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[J.T.B.]

And naming Intrepid-classes Voyager and Bellerophon just says "I give no f***s about naval tradition." Names of subsequent ships should have some bearing on the name of the first ship of the class, so you know exactly what type of ship you're talking about without needing pictures or detailed descriptions.

Naval tradition for the US and UK, at least, is that you can't always tell anything about a class just by the names. Minotaur class cruisers Shannon, Defence. Warrior class cruiser Natal. Arethusa class cruisers Inconstant, Royalist, Undaunted. Orion class battleships Monarch, Conqueror, Thunderer. Kearsarge class battleship Kentucky. King George V class battleships Centurion, Ajax, Audacious. Queen Elizabeth class battleships Warspite, Valiant, Malaya. Indefatigable class battlecruisers Australia, New Zealand. Lion class battlecruiser Princess Royal. Independence class carrier Langley. Saipan class carrier Wright. Midway class carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sturgeon class submarines William H. Bates, L. Mendel Rivers, Richard B. Russell. Los Angeles class submarine Hyman G. Rickover. Seawolf class submarines Connecticut, Jimmy Carter. Wasp class LHDs Bataan, Iwo Jima. America class LHA Tripoli. San Antonio class LPDs John P. Murtha, Richard M. McCool Jr. And so on.

 

[Timo]

...Starship class ships all being named after famous starships?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Push The Button]

Hi Timo

I’m talking about the TNG staff’s decision to name a shuttle after him, a mere 40 or so years after the end of the Reich, when many veterans and survivors were still living.