What's in a ship name

I saw a tweet earlier that sparked a thought or two ...

It was from Think Defence and it was asking "Any suggestions on the best names for the new RN mini frigates ?"

Not that one. That's a curious looking ship though, wonder if it's still available ?

There it is. New ship design, just announced. It's the Type 31e, following the Arrowhead 140 design which is based on the Dutch Iver Huitfeld design. So a similar shape and insides and then we'll tailor it to the equipment and systems of working that we want to put in it.

Looks tidy. But there's a difference to "it looks nice" and it being able to go anywhere, kick butt and get out again. We'll see what this one turns out like !

This post isn't one to be about naval ship design though. This one is for the names !

The last ship of mine that I posted on here was the Black Sheep :

Seen there investigating the treasure trove of Dav's Hope. The next one was "Strength of Atlas", a Type 9 freighter put together for taking lots of cargo to a trading community goal.

She'll be back out carrying more cargo for future community goal missions. The freighters aren't much fun to fly though. They don't turn, they orbit.

Effective for what they do though and they don't need to be unlocked like the Imperial Cutter or Federal Corvette. The next ship was for combat :

An Alliance Crusader, going by the name of Goldie Runner. I'm using dog names as the theme for the Alliance ship names, so the first one was "sCRUFFY nEIGHBOURHOOD". Yep. Forgot about caps lock and by then, the name was baked in and it's bad luck to change it. Goldie was an athlete who loved to run fast... and I'll think of something suitable for the Ben-ship at some point. The current ship is :

Searching for Biscuits. She's an Orca class passenger ship (no passengers allowed) who will be going on a couple of short range exploration expeditions and I'm hoping to acquire some amazing looking screenshots.

But how about these new Navy ships ? The various ship classes have their names arranged by themes so :

At the moment, Duke class frigates with names like Richmond, Northumberland, St Albans.
Minehunters named after seaside towns like Grimsby, Penzance.
Destroyers with names starting with D like Daring, Dragon (like that one), Diamond.
River class patrol vessels like Mersey and Tyne.
City class Type 26 ships coming with names like Glasgow and London.

One of the reasons for the new City class names was to try and encourage recruitment by connecting the ship to a place to recruit from. Something like : "I'm a Glaswegian serving on HMS Glasgow and my pop helped build the ship." That's powerful.

But .... where to go for the next ships ? You could go a bit boring and safe and traditional with something like towns. As in, smaller population areas to go along with the cities. There are 5 of these planned so 5 names for each category.
Let's see : Warwick, Chichester, Salisbury, Ramsgate, Bodmin. Safe, boring.
Battles : Britain, Normandy, Arnhem, Dunkirk, Tobruk.
Football clubs and stadia : Anfield, Stamford Bridge, Highbury, Old Trafford, Ashton Gate.

Pop culture is also incredibly powerful in the youth that the Navy want to recruit from. So let's see ...

Sci fi can be a goldmine of names. Enterprise is already taken (she's a survey ship), so Defiant from Deep Space 9, (Millennium) Falcon from Star Wars, Rocinante from The Expanse, Prometheus from Stargate and Galactica (or Pegasus) from the Battlestar show. Pegasus is a great name for a ship.

And then there's : Thundercat, Thunderbird, Dogtanian, Fireball, Stingray, Greyskull.

Not sure about those. And Emmerdale, Walford, Erinsborough, Benwell, Holby City.
Kent (got one already), Wayne, Oliver, Stark, Rogers, Xavier. (6 because Kent is taken already)

Some names are definitely better than others. AND WE HAVEN'T GOTTEN INTO GAME CULTURE YET !

From Warcraft : Proudmoore, Windrunner, Arthas, Thrall, Stormwind.
Halo : Spartan, Cortana, Keyes, Locke, Arbiter.
Not done with pop culture yet either : Anakin, Amidala, Ahsoka, Ackbar, Andor. (The A-class is already taken by submarines though).
There's more : Tracer, Bastion, Hanzo (ship namers wouldn't know the consequences), McCree, Winston.
Also : Wick, Breakpoint, Jaeger, Fyra, Revolt.

Addon - couple more :
Stokes, Archer, Cook, Atherton, Botham.
Lineker (perhaps no),  Beckham, Butcher, Pearce ... and that's all I got for footballers.
Wilkinson (would become the Sword), Warburton, Hastings, Johnson, O'Driscoll.

So many names. I'm probably disqualified from naming any ship though, after my current form. (Elite Fleet list is at the link). In my current save, I've gone through :
Starters : Money Spider, Undaunted, Dragonbug, Greater Dragonbug, Mini Magpew, Keela's Wings, Dauntless and Mighty Magpew.
Explorer ships : Day Tripper, Searching For Tea, Chrissa's New Potato and Searching for Biscuits.
Scavenger ships : Porpoise Prospector, sCRUFFY nEIGHBOURHOOD.
Fighty ships : Mostly Toothless, Commander Fuzzy, Captain of Elysium, Goldie Runner.
Tribute ships : Niki and Charlie, Kerr Avon Forever, Rage of Kashyyyk
Trading ships : Needs More Pewpew, Empire's Bounty, Tortoise Beats Hare, Black Sheep and Strength of Atlas.

Naming things is fun.

May need a "Searching for Lego".