Naming federation starships after federation presidents?

[Lyon_Wonder]

Should Starfleet name starships after Federation presidents? Heck, the US government does this in real life. In the last 30 years new US Nimitz class aircraft carriers have been named after former US presidents, even recent ones like Ford, Reagan and George H W Bush. Of course, I think naming ships after recent presidents is mostly political to persuade Congress for more funding. Starfleet might name a proposed, larger-than-Galaxy class dreadnaught after a former or sitting Federation president just to get the Fed council to go along with the project, especially if it’s controversial. Some might think Starfleet should field more smaller ship-classes instead of a handful of humongous, bigger-than Galaxy Class sized ones. Unless Starfleet is like the Royal Navy, IIRC, doesn’t name ships after politicians.

 

[Penta]

Mostly political? Nonono, these days ship names are entirely political.

There's a story that puts it best. Prior to the Los Angeles class, submarines (attack subs, anyway) were named generally for denizens of the deep.

When asked by a subordinate why this was changing, Hyman G. Rickover said: "Because fish don't vote!"

 

[AdmiralGarak]

Should Starfleet name starships after Federation presidents?

What? You're not familiar with those great Federation Presidents Lyndon B. Enterprise, Abraham Reliant, and Harry S. Shuttlepod One?

 

[sbk1234]

Of course they should. That is assuming there are Federation presidents who have done things worthy of having ships named after them. (Yes, many will argue - perhaps rightfully so - that the U.S. has named ships after presidents who don't deserve the honor, but that's for another post.)

To take this discussion to its logical extension, there should definitely be ships named after leaders from planets other than Earth, also. Off the top of my head, the only non-earth named ships I can think of were the Gorkon, and T'Kumbra.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

when are the new Nixon-class carriers going to be commissioned?

 

[Sci]

I think it would be pretty neat to see ships named after former Federation Presidents.

Of course, the issue there is that the only Federation Presidents we've ever seen named in the canon were Jaresh-Inyo of Grazer and Jonathan Archer of Earth (and him only on a viewscreen).

Still, as a fan of TrekLit, I'd get a kick out of seeing the USS Ra-ghoratreii or the USS Kenneth Wescott or the USS Avaranthi sh'Rothress.

 

[Timo]

In general, very few Starfleet ships are named after people at all - unless these are people from pre-spaceflight Earth, who have probably had pre-spaceflight ships named after them and thus the starships are named after those ships rather than after the people.

There are no known starships named after Starfleet personnel, either. Oh, an Archer or a Chekov may lurk in the shadows, but those may just as well be named after Henry and Anton, not Jonathan and Pavel. Perhaps there's a policy of not giving such recognition - or perhaps it is felt that giving a person's name to a starship is an insult rather than an honor. "What, they have associated my name with a lifeless pile of tritanium that goes about firing phasers at people?"

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Finn]

^there IS a USS Archer.... unless you are pretending Nemesis didn't happen?

How do we know we haven't? Hathaway, Horaito, Al-Banati, Armstrong (for all we know it wasn't named after a certain Neil), Bradbury, Buran, and Grissom to name a few...

 

[Timo]

As said, the Archer could be named after something else than Jonathan. We never got a name that would be so rare and exotic that we could identify it outright as that of a Starfleet officer, and we only ever got something like two names we could identify as Trek characters (Gorkon, Surak), and only one of them ever appeared onscreen explicitly as the name of a Starfleet vessel (USS Zapata wasn't identified as Surak class onscreen, and the TMP shuttle apparently wasn't a Starfleet vessel).

Yeah, we can interpret any name "in the reverse", as that of a heretofore unmentioned Starfleet hero. But we can always opt not to. Perhaps it is no longer in fashion to honor soldiers in ship naming? Perhaps it's unfashionable to honor soldiers, period? Or perhaps all the soldier names go to dedicated warships, which stay off screen?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ethros]

Well to be fair its pretty obvious the USS Archer was named for Johnny, seen as why the film makers put it in there

To take this discussion to its logical extension, there should definitely be ships named after leaders from planets other than Earth, also. Off the top of my head, the only non-earth named ships I can think of were the Gorkon, and T'Kumbra.

There's also the USS Sitak, possibly named for the Vulcan admiral who was still alive & serving at the time
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Sitak


And the USS ShirKahr, named for the Vulcan city



And speaking of naming ships after people, the USS Thomas Paine seems to be the only use of using first and last names. Maybe Starfleet didnt want to confuse anyone

 

[Herbert1]

If Starfleet was a real organization in the future, I presume that it would name starships for its heroes, battles, and leaders.

Because Star Trek tells stories for 20th and 21st century audiences, we get starships named for World War II aircraft carriers which are in turn named for sites of battles during the American War for Indepence or for historical figures, scientists, and academics that audiences would recognize.

For example, we get several ships named U.S.S Yorktown, but no U.S.S. Cheron or Axanar. Nobel-class starships, but no ships named Zee-Magnees. U.S.S. Pasteur but no U.S.S. Roger Korby.

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

If Starfleet was a real organization in the future, I presume that it would name starships for its heroes, battles, and leaders.

Because Star Trek tells stories for 20th and 21st century audiences, we get starships named for World War II aircraft carriers which are in turn named for sites of battles during the American War for Indepence or for historical figures, scientists, and academics that audiences would recognize.

For example, we get several ships named U.S.S Yorktown, but no U.S.S. Cheron or Axanar. Nobel-class starships, but no ships named Zee-Magnees. U.S.S. Pasteur but no U.S.S. Roger Korby.

if star trek WAS a real future organization, what are the chances we'd see ships named "USS Shatner" or "USS Spock" ???

i mean, ST fans got the space shuttle Constitution renamed Enterprise, after all (interesting since Enterprise was Constitution-class)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think it would be pretty neat to see ships named after former Federation Presidents.

Of course, the issue there is that the only Federation Presidents we've ever seen named in the canon were Jaresh-Inyo of Grazer and Jonathan Archer of Earth (and him only on a viewscreen).

Still, as a fan of TrekLit, I'd get a kick out of seeing the USS Ra-ghoratreii or the USS Kenneth Wescott or the USS Avaranthi sh'Rothress.

Or the USS Hiram Roth.