Random Ship names List

Maybe Saratoga has some significance to Starfleet that we haven’t seen in canon?

The Enterprise NCC-1701-A for example (formerly the Yorktown incidentally, according to Roddenberry).

Yeah, much as we see them in a lot of fan works, the -A/B/C designations seem to be non-standard, maybe applying only to the Enterprises.

I love the tables btw, I may tweak them and add them to my own files! I could probably double the British list… and think there’s room for a few French, German, Swedish and Russian ones. And it’s nice to see Aubrey get a mention, but where’s Hornblower? :sunglasses:

Saratoga, Enterprise, Eisenhower, Yorktown, and a few others are names used recently for US Battleships and Aircraft Carriers, as well as older British Naval ships. (Enterprise and Yorktown specifically. Haven’t looked for others.)

Not just for the Enterprise. The Defiant on DS9 gets an A designation after it is destroyed and replaced during the show. The Enterprise is the only one that we have seen have more than one letter designation, but I do not see why it should be limited to just the Enterprise.

In my campaign, I am going to utilize the letter designations for Legacy ships that may be seen fairly often, or for the players ships if they wish to keep the same name. (Examples: Names of the original NX class ships. Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Endeavor, Discovery, Atlantis.)

This is what they intended. It never came to fruition since the use of stock footage would not have matched if they actually updated the model to reflect this.

The Enterprise NCC-1701-A for example (formerly the Yorktown incidentally, according to Roddenberry).

Yeah, much as we see them in a lot of fan works, the -A/B/C designations seem to be non-standard, maybe applying only to the Enterprises.

I love the tables btw, I may tweak them and add them to my own files! I could probably double the British list… and think there’s room for a few French, German, Swedish and Russian ones. And it’s nice to see Aubrey get a mention, but where’s Hornblower?

didn’t make the cut sadly but certainly could be lots. I went with 6 tables for simplicity, but I could have easily gone with more (I considered editing the british list to likewise have a selection of “choose a city name” and “choose a british colony” but I was admittingly writing for a North American audiance whom might not be able to name Colony’s and UK city names as easily) I’ve also considered additional catagories, Russian, French, German, Fictional characters. Oddly I found I struggled with the American names the most as they’ve seen the most use. British ships also posed an intreasting challange in that a lot of their battleship names would be inapproperate for a starfleet vessel. I just can’t see a USS Warspite or USS Revenge. Although they might be decent names for a Defiant class

They would make great mirror universe ship names. ISS Warspite, ISS Revenge

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German naming conventions of weapon systems (including, but not limited to ships) are a bit special, I think. They are, as a matter of fact, a scandalized subject to public debate in prime time news every other year (because there is e.g. still a Field Marshal Rommel Barracks which some deem inappropriate because he was a high-ranking General with the Nazi-Wehrmacht).

In general, we do not use names of persons (except for bases; and these bases are the main reason that the debate I mentioned goes on; also the Air Force Wing responsible for Executive Transport has some civilian aircrafts named after early chancellors) but rather places or animals. Concerning the ships, we tend to name them after our federal States (the newest frigate class named “Baden-Würrtemberg”-class) or (big) cities (the newest corvette class named “Braunschweig”-Class). Interestingly, our captial city, Berlin, lends its name to the class of Replenishment Ships currently in use.

We also had ships named after islands, or maritime fauna. Birds seemed to be especially popular for a time, but there were fish seafood (yes.) and even land animals (e.g. Lion or Puma, the latter being now the name of an Infantry Fighting Vehicle, IFV). Now, it’s mostly cities and some rivers.

So, if you want a random list of possible ship names following the tradition of nowadays German Navy, I would recommend to draw it from the List of Cities and Towns in Germany, the List of Rivers of Germany. You could also just take literally any animal to name a ship, though. :slight_smile:

The problem with persons is that Germany was unified from countless scattered, little but sovereign principalities to the German Empire in 1871. The Empire started WW1 (this is debated by scholars of history, recently, but anyway…). The Empire then was reorganised to become a democracy in 1918, but this democracy failed to defend itself from the Nazis rising in power in 1933; the Nazis eventually started WW2 in 1939. Todays Germany, the Federal Republic, was reorganised in 1949. I think, the majority of Germans would say that the period from 1871–1945 (or 1949) is not apt to spark tradition. Luckily, almost everyone agrees on this for the period 1933–1945.
This leaves us for the last seventy years or so. There is not much to draw off and post-heroism seems to be part of our culture, now. So, naming a warship after e.g. Chancellor Angela Merkel is kind of unthinkable in Germany. I think this holds also true for Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (who seemed to have been accepted even by his political enemies and has served in the Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr) or President Weizsäcker, who was one of our more notable presidents.

But if you want a list of German personalities that could lend their names to warships, I would recommend to start searching within the resistance against the Nazis. The List of Members of the 20 July Plot could be a start, other notable organisations were the so-called Red Orchestra or the White Rose. I, personally, would think about adding Fritz Bauer to the list of important German personalities. I am not sure whether he would have liked having a warship named after him, though.

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The last Time I named a Ship after a German Person I choose Leibnitz, wich leads, that in every Game it has a stint in, I hear the “Leibnitz Butter cooky” Slogan from one of my Players.

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you’re forgetting MisterX that we’re talking starfleet, not modern german naval tradtions. starfleet has a wide varity of naming tradtions they draw from. Notably they name them for famous ships (such as USS Enterprise), famous people , and locations.

@BrianDavion
I am most certainly not forgetting the fact that we are discussing Starfleet. I am merely suggesting that a flavoured ‘German’ list as mentioned by @Astronut should probably contain more places and animals than persons for the reasons I elaborated. Last time I checked, “places” as well as “persons” were compatible to Starfleet naming conventions.

If I might quote myself:

I have to apologise because I obviously failed to stress that these were meant as options and in no way exhaustive.

Regarding the emphasis on ‘modern’ traditions: I sincerely hope that everyone agrees that the traditions of not-so-modern Germanys are in no bloody way an inspiration for anything Starfleet related.

Thank you for thoroughly reading my post.

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To reiterate “Saratoga has some significance to Starfleet”. I was trying to give a possible reason for why a new vessel by this name reappeared so quickly after Wolf 359. It’s possible that one of the earlier Saratogas has a legendary history not unlike that of Kirk’s Enterprise.

I was going to comment on the letter suffixes, but I see others have already done so! Certainly to my knowledge, Enterprise is the only one with this tradition. I view it as Starfleet’s answer to HMS Victory - the oldest commissioned warship in the Royal Navy.

@MisterX: that’s a very valid point and I apologise for not considering it. I guess there’s not much of a pre-Empire naval tradition to draw on either. Maybe the German contribution would be in the form of scientists, composers and other cultural big names (of which there are very many!). Another possibility would be mythological figures (Siegfried, Arminius, etc) - but given how they were coopted by certain groups, I’d guess those might be controversial as well?

really germany never had much of a navy until Wilheilm II got competivie with his cousins the british royals and attempted to build a fleet to match them. Germany has never been a major naval power.

Ever heard of this thing called ’ Hanseatic League’? Just askin…

No need for apologies. Why should you apologise for Germany having different history and traditions than UK and US? See? I don’t see why, either. :slight_smile:

Yes, there are plenty of scientists that would perfectly fit the hulls of Daedalus/Olympic, Orberth, Nebula and Nova Class starships. Regarding composers and other cultural big names, I share @aramis’ doubts.

I actually did not think about this. That would depend on the respective mythological figure, I think.
And also: Only because I would never name a ship ‘USS von Moltke’ (uncertainty intended), you are most definetly free to do so.

Another possibility to draw of for a ‘German flavoured list’ would be Prussia. They even had a navy, though not a very large one, I suppose. The Prussians were more into ground combat, I think.

Also, I completely ignored Eastern Germany, meaning the ‘German Democratic Republic’, the Soviet satellite-State that existed about 40 years until German re-unification in 1989. They were, generally speaking, heavily into worker-heroes. If I weren’t born and raised in Western Germany, Sigmund Jähn would have probably been the first name coming to my mind when thinking about Germany and Spaceship names.

But, in the end:

I am not entirely sure we actually need a German contribution in the first place. :slight_smile:

I was, admittingly, refering to Germany itself. not the various… proto-german states (I suppose would be the best term for it)

Wie bitte? Ich glaube es hackt. :wink:

Well, I would not name a Federation Starship after Werner von Braun, because of V2 or German Statesman, well, I would not took British, American or other Statesmen as well.
But Alexander Gerst, abouve Mentioned Leibnitz, or other Scientiffic Figures yes, of course.
And it seems perfect to Name some Danube Raunabouts after German Rivers.

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Von Braun | Memory Alpha | Fandom apparently starfleet has no issues naming ships after him if that shuttles anything to go by.

Since there is a Excelsior-Class named USS Berlin, I kept with the idea and named the first ship for my crew USS Hamburg.
The starting crew even had two German crew members.
For Scientists, there would be some German doctors to choose from. Like Robert Koch or Albert Schweizer.
As well as Schiller and Goethe which should not be left out. Naming ships in Trek tends to come simple (at least for me).

Jaja, bin ja schon ruhig. :slight_smile: Deutsche Namen klingen halt komisch für mich in dem Kontext… :wink:

Well, even Starfleet makes mistakes. :wink: Like @LucasCunningham I would have never thought of doing this, for the same reasons. Especially, since recent historic debates put von Braun closer to the Nazi ideology than he was thought to be for long time…

We discussed this in the other thread I mentioned: Naming warships after poets seems rather odd to me. But for civilian ships – why not?

It’s your universe, name ships what you like. I have a Nova class science ship in my game called the USS Arthur Jeffries. (Professor Proton from Big Bang Theory)

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John Paul Jones would be a possible addition to the Russian list, as he was hired as an Admiral in the Russian Navy after the American Revolution.

It was a matter of access to the sea - Prussian ports? LOL