YouTube video: "NCC" ...from a Submariner's Perspective
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Ideally, NCC should have been just for the Connies and their refits, like CVN for nuclear powered carrier and DDG for destroyer with guided missiles. The guy is totally right that putting NCC on every class makes no sense.
The chance to fix this was The Wrath of Khan, when the Reliant could have been designated NCF or some such. But Franz Joseph had gone all in on NCC, with long lists of specified ships in various classes, and the movie producers seemed to take that as their format without putting any real thought into it.
Saying that NCC means "Starship that goes multiples of c" is better than "Naval Construction Contract" (Franz Joseph's answer), but it still doesn't add much info to the hull, and would be entirely unnecessary. But I'll take it, as the best rationalization for NCC yet.
The chance to fix this was The Wrath of Khan, when the Reliant could have been designated NCF or some such. But Franz Joseph had gone all in on NCC, with long lists of specified ships in various classes, and the movie producers seemed to take that as their format without putting any real thought into it.
Saying that NCC means "Starship that goes multiples of c" is better than "Naval Construction Contract" (Franz Joseph's answer), but it still doesn't add much info to the hull, and would be entirely unnecessary. But I'll take it, as the best rationalization for NCC yet.
It was a decent attempt, but falls down because it doesn't consider the other prefixes that we've seen from (presumably) the same issuing authority, principally NAR.
Now, FWIW, I still agree with him to an extent and I'd say he's probably right about N=starship, I'm just not sure about the CC part (though it's still better than "construction contract").
CC classifications used by the US Navy include Battlecruiser (<1961) and Command Cruiser/Ship (post-1961), so any of those could work as a clarifier to Starship IMO.
This is well-known, but I'll just say it: Matt Jefferies chose NCC as a reference to airplane tail numbers. A tail number starting with N means the plane is registered in the United States. The C came into it because, prior to 1949, there was a second letter after N. NC meant a U.S. commercial aircraft. And Jefferies added a second C just because he thought it looked better.
So we got NCC. Nobody was supposed to think about it much while watching television, but here we are.
So we got NCC. Nobody was supposed to think about it much while watching television, but here we are.
True, but this makes zero sense as the in-universe reason, so is somewhat of a moot point, IMO.
Given that NAR is the other N registry that appears to have the same registering authority, we could also speculate that N means "Federation" for some reason, though F or U would make more sense there.
For similar reasons, I kinda wish they'd retcon'd USS (United Space/Star Ship) to FSS (Federation Starship) at some point.
Why did he make that video?
Just for the halibut.
FUN-1701 doesn't work for some reason though...
We know NX and NCC use the same numbering pool, and it's likely NAR does, too (the Confederacy timeline La Sarina had an NCC number identical to the Prime timeline's NAR number, but there's wiggle-room since they are two different timelines). It seems whatever NCC means, it's the generic option, with the alternate prefixes used in cases where more specificity is needed. Which, I suppose applies to "faster-than-light ship," "navel construction contract," or my personal favorite, "navigational contact code." In any case, the obscure historical reason would probably be that the ship-registering authority of the Federation started just as a list of Starfleet ships, and "NCC" might've been chosen as a prefix marking ships that were under authority of the new unified Starfleet while other ships kept their own existing prefixes. Eventually, the Starfleet database expanded to specify experimental ships, and civilian ships which could be called up or deputized by Starfleet.
The ENT-era did seem to have the more realistic system of the prefix/symbol being specific to ship type, with the DY, J, Y, and NX-classes, though those appeared to advance incrementally and aren't derived from human-readable abbreviations. That's generally been the assumption, at least, with fandom proposing the Intrepid as an NV-class, and the Starfleet Adventures RPG going with FX-class (though in their case, the "X" seemed to mean it was part of the Warp 5 program, perhaps explaining why those ships had two-letter prefixes).
By the way, Gene Roddenberry didn't lie about Pravda shaming him into inventing Pavel Chekov so you could make a snarky remark about rejecting the idea of a Soviet historical influence on the Starfleet prejudicially, Mr. Video Guy. Honestly, the attitude of the video has kind of put me off my customary pissing and moaning about Trek characters saying "kitchen" instead of "galley" and whatnot. "Yeaup, only some lubber would think 'NCC' stood for something, when in the real world, the letters before hull numbers don't stand for anything, except for all the examples I'm about to give of the words that they stand for."
The ENT-era did seem to have the more realistic system of the prefix/symbol being specific to ship type, with the DY, J, Y, and NX-classes, though those appeared to advance incrementally and aren't derived from human-readable abbreviations. That's generally been the assumption, at least, with fandom proposing the Intrepid as an NV-class, and the Starfleet Adventures RPG going with FX-class (though in their case, the "X" seemed to mean it was part of the Warp 5 program, perhaps explaining why those ships had two-letter prefixes).
By the way, Gene Roddenberry didn't lie about Pravda shaming him into inventing Pavel Chekov so you could make a snarky remark about rejecting the idea of a Soviet historical influence on the Starfleet prejudicially, Mr. Video Guy. Honestly, the attitude of the video has kind of put me off my customary pissing and moaning about Trek characters saying "kitchen" instead of "galley" and whatnot. "Yeaup, only some lubber would think 'NCC' stood for something, when in the real world, the letters before hull numbers don't stand for anything, except for all the examples I'm about to give of the words that they stand for."
I was thinking FCC or UCC.
More or less.
It's the generic option for Starfleet operated vessels, NAR appears to be more common for civilian-operated Federation vessels, and allegedly according to the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual (unlike the previous TMs an internal writers guide) is generally applied to "merchant-type vessels" and was inspired by the National Association of Rocketry.
How about FUC?
FCC won't let me be.
I like to think that originally in TOS, NCC was a traditional carryover for Cruiser, Command (nuclear powered) similarly to the US Naval Hull Classifications:https://www.navalcovermuseum.org/wiki/Hull_Designations_in_Alphabetical_Order. Over the centuries, Starfleet may have been re-designated the N to be Matter-Antimatter Powered and moved the letter to front of the CC. But, I do see that as with aircraft, the "N" designates country of origin, so, for early TOS, the "N" could designate planet government of origin. YMMV 
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