The ship was named for J.J. Abrams's grandfather. The thing is, I didn't know that his grandfather was named Franklin, and since Franklin is a pretty common name, and there is a major historical figure with that same last name that one could presume the ship was named after in-universe, there's really no problem. But Okuda? Everyone knows Michael Okuda and his wife Denise are Star Trek production personnel, who don't have a common name, and to my knowledge have no major historical figures with that last name. Even if one were to say that there's a fictional person with that name that the ship is named after, it doesn't change the fact that the name is hitting us over the head because (unlike Abrams's grandpa) we know exactly why that name was chosen. It's not a huge deal, and good for Mike and Denise that they got a canon ship named after them. I just find the practice of naming ships and characters after production personnel to be mildly irritating.
The USS Okuda's obviously named after that Starfleet officer whose name's on every starship's dedication plaque.
I was always under the impression that the Franklin was named after STB director Justin Lin’s dad, Frank Lin.
In real life it was but in-universe no specific inspiration has been given for the ship's name. But since it originated in the Prime Timeline circa 2147 it could reference any explorer, statesman or scientist up to the early 22nd century.
The other weird one I can think of is the 'Excelsior II'-class USS Excelsior NCC-42037, with a registry higher than the USS Eureka NCC-42023. Would the class ship of the 'Excelsior II'-class also be called USS Excelsior, anyway?
The U.S.S. Constitution was NCC-1700 while the U.S.S. Constellation was NCC-1017 so this isn't exactly new to Trek in any century of in-universe history. Registry numbers have little logic to them.
What about Rosalind Franklin the Chemist? There was going to be a Mars Rover named after her but it's been postponed due to Russian involvement in the programme Rosalind Franklin - Wikipedia
You're mixing up the Franklin, named for Frank Lin and the Kelvin, which was named for JJ's uncle. He names something for uncle Kelvin in all of his films, and now he's got a whole timeline named for him.
No, because it isn't an Enterprise. In this era only Enterprises got letters. That's Dave Blass's reasoning anyways. It lines up with what the TNG/DS9 Writer's room wanted back then as well. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Federation_starships Look how many repeated names there are on this list with no letter in the registry.
Ah, ok, yes I was misremembering. I find it more irritating that a new 25th century ship class would use a 4XXXX registry number than the Excelsior having a higher reg than the Eureka. I know I'm going to sound like 'that guy,' but has the 1700 registry for the Constitution ever been canonically confirmed on screen?
I thought they said the ship was a new class as of 2401 and not a refit of the older Excelsior class?
1700 was used, from the ST:TM Constitution-class page, to represent the Enterprise in Search For Spock. I think it came up on Data's superfast reading in TNG S1 although not sure that counts either.