The Federation has thousands of starships, yet most of the famous ones are named after things from Earth. Why is that? Why don't they name them after something from another race who is a member of the Federation?
Why no alien names?
- Thread starter Lookingglassman
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Yeah, really...this doesn't seem very PC, and we know the Federation's all about PC.
(Even if it weren't for their excess political correctness, however, this would still be the decent thing to do, on grounds that other species have served and shed their blood for the Federation, and should be honored for their sacrifice.)
Well, one could argue that ships whose names are common nouns or adjectives - and those are actually the most famous, Enterprise, Defiant, Voyager - have their equivalent names in other languages and it's written on starship hulls in English because it's the Federation's standard language (does the universal translator work on writing as well? 
). Now, I know those are also proper nouns, names of ships and other things from Earth's history but it's possible there was also an Andorian Defiant and a Vulcan Voyager and such, of course in their native languages.
). Now, I know those are also proper nouns, names of ships and other things from Earth's history but it's possible there was also an Andorian Defiant and a Vulcan Voyager and such, of course in their native languages.
There was at least one ship called the USS Surak
There have been one or two Starfleet ships with "Alien" names mentioned in DS9.
Off the top of my head, the T'Kumbra, the Sitak and the Sarek ().
I think they're all Vulcan though - but hey, it's a start.
Starfleet has thousands of ships, I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility the majority of them have Andorian, Tellarite or Golden Hobbit names, and we just haven't seen or heard of them.
Off the top of my head, the T'Kumbra, the Sitak and the Sarek (
).I think they're all Vulcan though - but hey, it's a start.
Starfleet has thousands of ships, I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility the majority of them have Andorian, Tellarite or Golden Hobbit names, and we just haven't seen or heard of them.
What about the T'Pau, can't remember the episode though!?
James
James
It's possible to assume that, of the four founding species, only humans had a large catalogue of historic ship names.
Andor and Vulcan almost definitely do not have navigable oceans, and hence no historical ships from which to draw names. It is possible that Tellar does not either.
Of course, no navigable oceans are no guarantee of a lack of names. Airships and aircraft have often received proper names on Earth, from the Hindenberg to the Enola Gay, despite the stronger tethers aircraft have to terrestrial logistics, and their more interchangeable nature.
And also not every planet in the Federation can be expected to be as arid as Vulcan or Andor.
Supplementary causes could then be seen to round this out:
A propensity on the part of many alien species for numbering rather than naming ships, particularly for those whose historical experience relates space fleets to air forces instead of navies;
Supercontinental geography on otherwise wet worlds, making blue-water navies and merchant fleets pointless;
Lack of meaningful terrestrial geography whatsoever, on wet worlds where the dominant species is intelligent marine life, who understand the concept of "ship" similarly to the way we would understand the concept of "car" and "aircraft" similarly to how we would see "submarine";
and
Long, peaceful, unemotional, and monocultural development, providing fewer surviving cultural traditions from which to draw suitably dynamic names (the Vulcans probably would name all their ships Surak if it were up to them
).
Andor and Vulcan almost definitely do not have navigable oceans, and hence no historical ships from which to draw names. It is possible that Tellar does not either.
Of course, no navigable oceans are no guarantee of a lack of names. Airships and aircraft have often received proper names on Earth, from the Hindenberg to the Enola Gay, despite the stronger tethers aircraft have to terrestrial logistics, and their more interchangeable nature.
And also not every planet in the Federation can be expected to be as arid as Vulcan or Andor.
Supplementary causes could then be seen to round this out:
A propensity on the part of many alien species for numbering rather than naming ships, particularly for those whose historical experience relates space fleets to air forces instead of navies;
Supercontinental geography on otherwise wet worlds, making blue-water navies and merchant fleets pointless;
Lack of meaningful terrestrial geography whatsoever, on wet worlds where the dominant species is intelligent marine life, who understand the concept of "ship" similarly to the way we would understand the concept of "car" and "aircraft" similarly to how we would see "submarine";
and
Long, peaceful, unemotional, and monocultural development, providing fewer surviving cultural traditions from which to draw suitably dynamic names (the Vulcans probably would name all their ships Surak if it were up to them
).
Alien names?
Where's the USS Al-Rasheed, or the USS Deng Xiao Peng, or the USS Angus McTavish, or the USS Mahat McKote.........
Where's the USS Al-Rasheed, or the USS Deng Xiao Peng, or the USS Angus McTavish, or the USS Mahat McKote.........
Are there actual ships in service or once in service named that?
Just asking--are there actual ships with those names in service now, or in service at one point?
I would imagine on foreign ships there would be similar names, but US ships wouldn't likely have such names, but the Federation is supposed to be all inclusive, especially with so many more ships then any current nation has.
OK, if starships named Intrepid, Valiant, Excelsior or Grissom don't float your boat, what about these:
Surek
Sarek
T'Pau
Sitak
T'Kumbra
Al-Betani
Cortez
Honshu
Biko
Minashi
Ghandi
Potemkin
Prokofiev
Lakota
Orinoco
G'Mat
Niels Bohr
Mekong
Ahwahnee
Crazy Horse
Tecumseh
Kongo
Sarajevo
Suleiman
ShirKahr
Tien An men
Valdemar...and so on.
I know I've seen Chinese named ships in the novels.
Still earth-centric but quite a few ethnicities represented.
Surek
Sarek
T'Pau
Sitak
T'Kumbra
Al-Betani
Cortez
Honshu
Biko
Minashi
Ghandi
Potemkin
Prokofiev
Lakota
Orinoco
G'Mat
Niels Bohr
Mekong
Ahwahnee
Crazy Horse
Tecumseh
Kongo
Sarajevo
Suleiman
ShirKahr
Tien An men
Valdemar...and so on.
I know I've seen Chinese named ships in the novels.
Still earth-centric but quite a few ethnicities represented.
In one DS9 episode there was also an exotic sounding name, I believe it was the USS Yu Essess
Well, I didn't mean the "U.S.S." part...
E.g., I couldn't find a PLAN (or whatever their prefix is) Deng Xiaoping.
Rackon said:
I'd forgotten about this. Lovely homage Starfleet's paying there to a great explorer... oh, wait, I mean glory-seeking, wife-killing, god-faking, Aztec-destroying, Narvaez-blinding syphillitic.
There's a Sarajevo on Enterprise. Yeah, I realize it's only one ship, but I'm too lazy to think of more now (Yamato in TNG would be another one)
Well, maybe it's partly linked to the theory that why we see vastly majority human crews and few aliens, is that there are other ships that are vastly say Andorian or Vulcan etc. Maybe the ships that are crewed vastly by another species tend to carry names that are more relevant to their culture? I
there's also the USS Gorkon which was name-checked on TNG...
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