As Adm Rickover said at the time "fish don't vote". Naming ships is like who to put on bank notes, it's part of your culture and whats important to you but you need to be politically astute as well when dealing with a legislature that is funding you.
Better names for US warships
- Thread starter scifilovr
- Start date
I doubt if Congress ever appropriated more money for submarines because they were named after particular cities. You can only name one after the city of the committee chairman each time the seat changes, and you always building new boats. All your doing is starting arguments between Congressmen over what to name the limited number of new boats. When they named SSN-705 after Corpus Christi they had to add the prefix City of because of the backlash against naming a warship the Body of Christ.
Something I don't get is why, after the first ship named after Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee was USS Higbee (DD-806), the new ship (DDG-123) had to be named USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee. There isn't another USS Higbee in the fleet to confuse it with, and everybody is already going to call it Higbee, so why do we have to write a much longer name now? Going the other way, Navy Cross awardee Rear Admiral Theodore E. Chandler had two ships named after him, the Gearing-class destroyer USS Theodore E. Chandler (DD-717) and the Kidd-class destroyer USS Chandler (DDG-996). The USS Theodore E. Chandler was so named to distinguish it from the USS Chandler (DD-206), a Clemson class destroyer named after Secretary of the Navy (1882-1886) William Eaton Chandler that was decommissioned in 1945. Why, then, was the next ship named after Theodore E. Chandler just the USS Chandler?
The world had an effective 'policeman' from 1815 to 1915, until certain senior officials in the US became upset that it wasn’t them and resolved to take any possible military or economic opportunity to reduce British influence.
Immigrant Song is about Vikings attacking the North Sea coast of England and subsequently settling with a capital of Yorvik (you know the place, one of your largest cities is [incorrectly, as there was already a New York near Boston {where the Mayflower originally sailed from before putting into Plymouth to replenish} before New Amsterdam was sold] named after it).
Yes, the Royal Navy had the County and Town class cruisers but most of the Towns were named after ports. The few exceptions were very large places like Birmingham, Nottingham, and Sheffield, which were centres of heavy industry involved in manufacturing components for warships.
Edit for additional thought:
I also don't recall any landlocked counties being represented. No HMS Derbyshire or HMS Herefordshire, for example.
Edit for additional thought:
I also don't recall any landlocked counties being represented. No HMS Derbyshire or HMS Herefordshire, for example.
Last edited:
I never minded my boat’s name. Especially since they’ve named a number of VACLs after WW2 battleships. There is something to be said for honoring the legacy: Washington sank a Japanese battleship, Iowa, Missouri, and New Jersey were all storied ships. Personally, my friends and I were thrilled to see names like Tang, Barb, and Wahoo return. We shall now read from the book…
I 100% agree with you. It’s good to see that Enterprise won’t die out, but there have been a lot of very historic names left to history: Lexington, Saratoga, Constellation (thankfully making a comeback).
Totally agree.
She has been renamed. USS Robert Smalls…
I think it is only fitting that boomers should have boring names.
Discussion/content mostly but the triply indented brackets are also worth appreciation ngl.
the Brits had (have?) a warship named Indefatigable. They deserve nothing but derision for that.
It followed the alliterative thinking of HMS Invincible, HMS Indomitable and HMS Inflexible. It certainly isn't my favourite, which is why my two G3s which come out of Balfour and Hughes' discussions on 14 December 1921 (PoD at 4pm) take the first pair of names.
It could be worse, they could have named her Unsinkable which is just begging for it. As for the name Indefatigable, it dates back to a 64 gun ship of the line from the 1780's. It was cut down to a frigate and was very successful in the Napoleonic wars. Also the ship the fictional Horatio Hornblower served on.
Last edited:
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
There was an HMS Surrey heavy cruiser planned before WWII.
I always feel sorry for the battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable - one poorly shot photo of what could be anything compared to the photos of Queen Mary & Invincible disassembling themselves swiftly over a wide area.
Which raises the question - why would you name later ships (both carriers) after vessels that immolated their own crews?
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
Didn't the Space Shuttles take some of those historic USN ship names - certainly Enterprise although that may not have been named after the Midway veteran...
The Incinvible's (ship that carried the name I mean) did have a remarkably high rate of being sunk vs retired.
The names did have a previous history. And plus, it is not as if they randomly exploded at port. It was in battle. Dying in battle is generally considered a heroic thing to do worthy of note.
Who cares? Space Shuttles are not USN ships and as such their names do not limit what names USN could give it's ships. USS Enterprise coexisted with HMS Enterprise after all.
Not sure why, it's a cracking name for a warship. Not as good as Invincible or Warspite, granted, but still a top tier war canoe name.
Inflexible is an odd one. Not to say bad, but it doesn't belong in the same league as Warspite for "Why would you not continue to reuse this?"
On US ships, it would be interesting to have mythological references - but then you'd have to decide what mythology. That might be tricky if you made it a consistent thing and not a one off whim.
On US ships, it would be interesting to have mythological references - but then you'd have to decide what mythology. That might be tricky if you made it a consistent thing and not a one off whim.
Surrey (county, not council district) isn't landlocked, its northern boundary is the (navigable) River Thames.
Nick P
Donor
There was an HMS Derbyshire - https://www.arborfield-september49ers.co.uk/hmt_derbyshire.htm
Talking of landlocked counties; there was also an HMS Hertfordshire - https://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/6351.html
and an HMS Bedfordshire - https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/1626.html
Back to the original question:
How about Native American tribes and leaders for US ship names? There must be enough for a whole class of warships rather than the handful randomly attributed here - https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/diversity/american-indians.html