• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Brainstorming starship names

The only annoying thing about the fall of the Soviet Union is the loss of a few cool-sounding ship names. I'd used USS Kirov since before the wall came down, and I still use it 'cuase I think the name sounds powerful. But Kirov himself was a Soviet politician, and after the fall they renamed the battle cruiser Kirov to, IIRC "Admiral Kuznetsov," which doesn't sound as dramatic.

So I'm not gonna redecal my Kirov model to Kuznetsov. I'm just gonna say that the Federation came to recognize important people in history whether their political favor waned or not.
 
BTW, Runabouts are easy, with their river-name theme. Just pick a river near home, or one that has significance to you. I live along the Ramapo River in NJ, so (if I ever get around to building it), my runabout model will be the "USS Ramapo." When I needed some for a fanfic, I used "USS Delaware" (the major river that borderes NJ & PA), and "USS James" (the river in Virginia where my Dad claims to have flown under ever bridge during fighter training in 1944). However, I chose to NOT use "USS Hackensack" or "USS Pasaaic" even though I travel near those rivers all the time. Some names just sound stupid. :lol:
 
EliyahuQeoni said:
Vance said:
Mysterion said:
He was a captain in "Generations"?
Click to expand...

I believe so. Granted, if I'm wrong, thirty people will rush in to correct me. :)
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, Chekov is wearing a commander's insignia in GEN, but one of the reporters calls him "Captain Chekov." I like to think that his promotion had been announced, but the ceremony hadn't yet taken place.
Click to expand...

Re-watched that part of GEN last night. Pavel is still wearing commander's rank, and a purple(?) turtleneck. At no pont did I hear him addressed as "captain".
 
kv1at3485 said:
Don't bother coming up with funny combinations of letters for 'alien' names. Just use english phrases, any phrase, even 'boring' phrases, and then claim that those are the (best) english translations and naturally they'd make more sense if culturally-challenged humans were better-versed in other cultures.
Click to expand...

See I don't like that though...it's limiting and unrealistic, and it shows. It's also disrespectful of us humans as your recognition of it is one example that we're not inherently culturally-challenged.

So with a nod to progress, I see Federation humans being as aware of sounds they can't pronounce (or colors they can't see, emotions they can't feel, or limbs they can't extend) as the average person is of a foreign language, animal call, or machine sound. We can hear how they're supposed to sound and try our best to match it in free-flowing conversation. Ditto the aliens trying to pronounce human languages or three-limbed aliens trying to imagine life with four.
 
How is that scheme limiting? If anything, it opens up a whole lot more possible names.

On the english translation, I probably wasn't clear. I was assuming that english was the lingua franca and ships are labelled in that lingua franca.

If the ship's name is, say, "Surok on the Forge" (english translation), then english speakers would say it in english. Vulcans would say it in their own language(s). Andorians whatever it happens to translate in their language(s). Except when they have to speak to other nationalities, in which case they all say it in the lingua franca.

I especially like this scheme when it comes to names like: "Enterprise" or "Defiant". Other cultures probably have reasonable translations, so why should they have to say it in English all the time? It also gives the ship's name more weight because now it practically represents that concept for a myriad languages and cultures, regardless of what language the ship is actually physically labelled in.

I guess I'm more concerned that meaning/information be preserved as much as possible rather than how it sounds when one says it, and its easier to preserve meaning if it's spoken in a language one understands. I'm also fond of the idea of "one face/label, many voices/languages". Fits the whole UFP thing.
 
Mysterion said:
Re-watched that part of GEN last night. Pavel is still wearing commander's rank, and a purple(?) turtleneck. At no pont did I hear him addressed as "captain".
Click to expand...

Watch the scene when they're first coming out of the turbolift. One of the reporters calls him "Captain Chekov".
 
^ I'm with you on that. It just sounded like you were saying, like in the case of proper names, not to bother coming up with anything exotic, just call an alien Hank Plowman and say it comes from H'N'K Pl!mn'.
 
Arpy said:
It just sounded like you were saying, like in the case of proper names, not to bother coming up with anything exotic, just call an alien Hank Plowman and say it comes from H'N'K Pl!mn'.
Click to expand...

Ah, so you *have* read New Frontier then! :lol:

(seriously though, "M'k'n'zy" - "MacKenzie"; how convenient. And he's even "of Calhoun", no less! )
 
I do like the sound of the Native American names, which are all over the place. The NAs have awesome names, as did the Dutch and other early New York settlers. Some near me:

Oquaga
Willowemac
Wawarsing
Shandacken
Mongaup
Mombaccus
Susquehanna
Chenango
Shokan
Ashokan
Utsayantha
Peekamoose (ok, so that one sounds kinda funny...)
Neversink
Kenoza

America probably has the most diverse naming system ever. :p
 
Watch the scene when they're first coming out of the turbolift. One of the reporters calls him "Captain Chekov".
Click to expand...

Might be he's the captain of some vessel, at Commander rank.

In the aired version of the movie, we never quite learn whether any of our three heroes is retired at that point, or still in active service. The young Chekov could very well be the latter. And I'm not really adverse to the idea that he would later get honored in the naming of Starfleet vessels - but OTOH, I see no real reason to assume that Pavel Chekov and Anton Chekov would have their names spelled differently. Today, the preferred way is to insert an extra "h" there. Tomorrow, the preferred spelling might be Tchekoff, or even Zjejov. There is certainly enough unwanted ambiguity in the current way of translitterating Cyrillic symbols.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Is there a policy about shuttle names or Delta Flyer class names? Having a dickens of a time coming up with a name for my Delta Flyer-class Captain's Yacht.
 
Triskelion said:
Is there a policy about shuttle names or Delta Flyer class names? Having a dickens of a time coming up with a name for my Delta Flyer-class Captain's Yacht.
Click to expand...

The policy for the Delta Flyer class is that they can only be named after a quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy. Better hurry up!!

:rommie:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top