Tempted by the idea of trying to preserve Vulcan history to ensure that Surak and his philosophy of logic takes hold… because otherwise, Earth in the 24th century is a vassal world of a powerful, militant Vulcan Star Empire.
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I’m working on a scenario where my crew has to rescue a nova class science vessel named USS Arthur Jeffries, because it amuses me.
Filed away for future reference… 
But, how many tubes does that Nova Class have then?
My current group, I had two andorian PC’s, and a third who was raised on Andor… (of a 7p starting group.)
So, rationalizing that the Thelev in TOS Journey to Babel replaced a real Th’Elev (by murder)…
They’re on the Intrepid Class USS Th’Elev. Most of the crew are Andorian.
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For an upcoming campaign (I used it before in a D20 Modern incarnation for an online forum game) I created the Ambassador-Class USS Andromeda. For the old game I also had the ship and the bridge crew and a couple of other crewmembers statted out, as the player characters were starting out low-level, and as such not a part of the command structure.
I haven’t found any references to a Starfleet vessel named Andromeda, so I thought it fitting to mention this here. It also surprised me, not finding any Andromeda reference. That would probably be as not to confuse anyone with the Andromeda Ascendant, from Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda series. But the Andromeda Galaxy is featured in Star Trek, up to the point where there were even two distinct species coming from that galaxy; the Kelvans end the androids of the planet Mudd, both in TOS. You would think a starship named Andromeda wouldn’t be too far fetched then.
Along those lines, then… U.S.S. Uranus, U.S.S. Coxswain, U.S.S. (or Ferengi equivalent) Inflation.
A bunch of (most likely) inappropriate names just popped into my head, that I may keep for random ship names in my campaign.
Yeah, it’s a weird omission…
Many years ago, inspired by the Andromeda TV series, I had an upgraded Excelsior-class ship of that name in my game, with an experimental AI controlling the ship’s systems (Starfleet will keep looping back to that idea!). The ship became the target of an Orion plot to steal the AI…
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Why? Ferenginar isn’t part of the Federation.
Hence the “Ferengi Equivalent”. A lot of Beta-Lore (in terms of Memory Alpha/Beta/Gamma/Omega) includes similar ship denominations for the respective governments, IKS for Imperial Klingon Ship is even canon. Just like today, where US Navy ships are prefixed USS, while it’s HM(*)S for (most?) the Commonwealth, FGS for German ships, ITS for Italian, and so on. FGS/ITS used intentionally; both navies do not use those prefixes internally, they’re solely in use for NATO-purposes.
So, there might be an FTS Inflation (e.g. Ferengi Trade Ship) or whatever you want to use for a ferengi prefix (if you want to use a ferengi prefix or at least want Starfleet to use them, regardless of whether the Ferengi themselves use them).
That being said: A USS Inflation would be a funny joke for a freighter. Since money officially is nonexistent it has no value at all, representing the maximum of inflation one can think of. 
I doubt that non-Starfleet vessels use the USS prefix. I think that some will use SS for StarShip but they do not have to.
Just like todays’ navies use tankers and tenders, it is possible that Starfleet employs own non-armed or low-armed, but still military vessels. But we’re derailing the discussion.
But even those do not use USS. The US Navy uses USNS for their non-commisioned ships if part of the Military Sealift Command and USNV if not. The Wikipedia-article about this topic is very interesting.
Back to topic:
Sadly the names of most starfleet vessels are a little bit too US centric. Starfleet does not need ships named after soldiers, battles, warships etc. but ships named after pioneers, explorers, inventors, diplomats, regions, rivers etc. not only from Earth but from all over the Federation. And like the Enterprise there should be more ships with names of honor which are always used. And these might be names from all those military organisations which became part of Starfleet. So there might be not only a long list of Starfleet vessels called Enterprise, but also such lists with vessels named Yamato, Victory, Emden etc.
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I think I’ve said this before, but I agree about the naming conventions. While the likes of Galaxy or "Nebula* make perfect sense for a starfleet, and Constitution or Enterprise make sense as values the Federation might extol, names of battles such as Trafalgar or Yorktown (both of which are canon) seem a little unlikely. Certainly, I’ve noticed a certain category of fans tend to produce ship names derived from American Civil and Revolutionary War battles amongst others.
Yamato has been seen on screen of course. I wonder if they’d follow the existing traditions for ships named after older vessels: HMS Victory is still in commission today (she was never decommissioned), which means that there hasn’t been another ship in the Royal Navy by that name since then. We got a couple of incarnations of HMS Victorious instead.
How about an exporation vessel called USS Beagle? She’d have been named after the vessel that took Charles Darwin to the Galapagos Islands, but a lot of non-human cadets would pass on rumours that she was named for Admiral Archer’s dog…
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Yes, but no, please. 
I love that one so much! It would perfectly fit both a Nova or an Orberth (I’d say: the latter) with the Scientific and Survey Operations Mission Profile. 
On that Note: Challenger, Trieste, Piccard and Walsh would also make good names for exploration vessels.
And for those who seek names for Olympic Class ships with the Crisis and Emergency Response Mission Profile, I have the names Solferino and Dunant.
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Star Fleet Battles has a Federation ship named Churchill and another named Missouri.
You could lift ship names from that alternate non-cannon setting.
http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Starship_Name_Registry.pdf
OH… sorry… I was looking at the name Inflation… not the prefix.
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Hmm, speaking as a Brit, I’d be wary of Churchill - we often gloss over his racism and imperialist attitudes, but I suspect the Federation wouldn’t! It would be akin to naming a ship the Theodore Roosevelt, and is an example of an issue with a lot of historic great names.
SFB is one of the sources that follows the more militaristic approach to shipnames I mentioned. The old FASA version of Star Trek had a similar approach. Not a problem if you’re ok with that though!
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Perfectly acceptable Starfleet name - as long as you’re referring to the cosmological principle!
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I like the idea of having a starship with all the shuttles named after famous scientific communicators. The Nye, Tyson, and Sagan.
As for non-Earth ship names, how about the USS Kumari, named after Shran’s ship from Enterprise?
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