Only Earth names for starships?

[Mage]

It always bugged me a bit that the writers couldn't come up with alien names for Federation starships.

I mean, sure, in their own languages, all the other Federation members will have a word for Defiant, Endeveaur, Voyager... But they're always marked on the hull in the English version. And as for the other names, they're always famous humans, Earth countries, Earth cities....

Humans make up a very small portion of the Federation. So it would make sense to have a starship named after a famous Tellarite explorer, or an Andorian capital city. Perhaps a Saurian freedom fighter. Who knows.

It just really bugs me.

 

[F. King Daniel]

DS9 had a USS ShiKahr, named for the city Spock grew up in.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Space is pretty big, IMO. I think the farther you get away from Earth, the more diverse the names get. In some of the really distant sectors of the Galaxy, Earth named ships may actually be few and far between (I tend to think the Enterprise-D was never too far from Earth most of the time).

But I think another thing to take into consideration is that Starfleet is definitely and unapologetically Earth-centric in nature. It originated there. It's headquartered there. Most of its traditions and customs are from there. So an Earth-bias for the majority of its ships should really be expected, IMO. But by that very same condition, if various Federation member worlds have their own planetary fleets, it'd probably be rare to see an Earth-named ship among them too.

 

[The Wormhole]

There have been a few Vulcan-named starships, the above mentioned USS ShirKahr, USS T'Kumbra, USS Sarek. There's even been a Starfleet ship named after a Klingon, USS Gorkon. According to Memory Alpha, the Gorkon was the first time Star Trek showed a Starfleet ship named after an alien.

 

[Mage]

I remember the Gorkon and T'Kumbra, didn't remember the other two.

But still, that's 4 starships out of God knows how many.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

This is something I've thought about every so often. Ships like the Defiant, Reliant, Enterprise, etc don't bother me so much, as they are more generic.

Another point is that the Norway-Class is the called 'Norway' as opposed to the Norge-Class. Why Anglicise it?

 

[SchwEnt]

There was also another ship that might have been Vulcan.
DS9's the Majestic and the Sitak. The name never appeared on-screen, so only hearing it led me to think of SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma). But it may also have been Seetak or Sitak, sounds Vulcan.

 

[Forbin]

Ya know, I'd love to come up with some alien ship names for my kitbashes, but I can't think of any! I don't know Andorian or Vulcan.

But having said that, I sometimes take the serendipity of what I'm using to kitbash from. For example, I bashed a Trek ship out of a Gundam called a Val-Walo. I decided that sounded Vulcan or something, so I changed the dash to a hyphen and called it the USS Val'Walo. I used a Pegasus Mercury 9 space ship to bash a Klingon cruiser, which I dubbed a Mer'Q 9 class.

 

[Sci]

This is a definite failure of the writers to imagine a more diverse Federation Starfleet.

Having said that -- it's important to remember that the Federation Starfleet is huge, and we've only ever seen a small portion of it. I'm happy to presume that there are hundreds and hundreds of ships out there with names like U.S.S. Avaranthi sh'Rothress, U.S.S. Soval, U.S.S. Kumari, U.S.S. Gora bim Gral, U.S.S. C29 Green, U.S.S. Li Nalas, U.S.S. Leran Manev, U.S.S. Te'ri O'ullhy, U.S.S. Nuvia, U.S.S. Antede, U.S.S. Holy Rings, U.S.S. Vaq, U.S.S. Shallash, U.S.S. V'Lar, U.S.S. Athendë, etc., etc.

 

[Mage]

This is a definite failure of the writers to imagine a more diverse Federation Starfleet.

Having said that -- it's important to remember that the Federation Starfleet is huge, and we've only ever seen a small portion of it. I'm happy to presume that there are hundreds and hundreds of ships out there with names like U.S.S. Avaranthi sh'Rothress, U.S.S. Soval, U.S.S. Kumari, U.S.S. Gora bim Gral, U.S.S. C29 Green, U.S.S. Li Nalas, U.S.S. Leran Manev, U.S.S. Te'ri O'ullhy, U.S.S. Nuvia, U.S.S. Antede, U.S.S. Holy Rings, U.S.S. Vaq, U.S.S. Shallash, U.S.S. V'Lar, U.S.S. Athendë, etc., etc.

Some great names in there!

 

[Sci]

This is a definite failure of the writers to imagine a more diverse Federation Starfleet.

Having said that -- it's important to remember that the Federation Starfleet is huge, and we've only ever seen a small portion of it. I'm happy to presume that there are hundreds and hundreds of ships out there with names like U.S.S. Avaranthi sh'Rothress, U.S.S. Soval, U.S.S. Kumari, U.S.S. Gora bim Gral, U.S.S. C29 Green, U.S.S. Li Nalas, U.S.S. Leran Manev, U.S.S. Te'ri O'ullhy, U.S.S. Nuvia, U.S.S. Antede, U.S.S. Holy Rings, U.S.S. Vaq, U.S.S. Shallash, U.S.S. V'Lar, U.S.S. Athendë, etc., etc.

Some great names in there!

Thanks!

There's a real wealth of Star Trek trivia to draw upon in generating alien Federation starship names -- non-Human worlds, cities, characters, artifacts, ships, etc., from alien societies that are Federation members, all of whom can be drawn upon.

 

[T'Girl]

Ships like the Defiant, Reliant, Enterprise, etc don't bother me so much, as they are more generic.

The thing there is, the display wall in the Enterprise's observation lounge had a collection of models of Human naval ships and starships. The USS Enterprise wasn't named for a basic generic concept, it was named for a lineage of Human ships.

... the Sitak. The name never appeared on-screen, so only hearing it led me to think of SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma).

Cool, they named a Starship after our airport.

 

[Sci]

Ships like the Defiant, Reliant, Enterprise, etc don't bother me so much, as they are more generic.

The thing there is, the display wall in the Enterprise's observation lounge had a collection of models of Human naval ships and starships. The USS Enterprise wasn't named for a basic generic concept, it was named for a lineage of Human ships.

Hopefully a practice that extends to non-Human worlds in the Federation as well. In the S.C.E. novella The Future Begins, for instance, we hear of the 24th Century U.S.S. Kumari, named for Shran's ship from ENT -- which itself was named for the first ice cutter to circumnavigate Andor. Presumably the U.S.S. Kumari, then, would have a similar display of historic Andorian ships named Kumari after whom she would have been named.

 

[MacLeod]

Well with estimates putting the starfleet numbering into the tens of thousands. Thats a lot of ships to name.

Once again one of the reason we don't see/hear these ships names is familiarty.

We say the U.S.S. a couple of times in TNG, which was no doubt named for the H.M.S. Hood. We've heard the names U.S.S. Sarek and U.S.S. Gorkon. We the viewer are familair with these names either down to human history or history within the ST show.

 

[captcalhoun]

it's not just human-centric, it's also anglo-american centric

 

[MacLeod]

Definatly with many of the ships (not named after people) originating back to the Royal Navy

 

[Finn]

For all we know, some of the "Earth" names may be actually be alien in origin despite similar spellings/pronunciations. We've seen dialogue where they mention one word/spelling have different definitions in different races.

 

[MacLeod]

Don't have to go to different worlds to have spellings mean different things. Just look at English and American English.

I.e the word meter, in English it means a measuring device, with the spelling metre meaning a unit of measurment. In American English the former means both, whilst that later would not be used.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If there are Federation ships with alien names, I wonder if it works in reverse - are there alien ships with human names?

For example, do the Klingons have an IKS Rachel Garrett? (I would think that among all the humans who could possibly be so well respected in the Empire, hers would be right up there at the top of the list. Probably more so than Jim Kirk's.)

 

[Finn]

If that kid manages to survive his childhood, he might name his Kazon ship "Seska" after his mommy who he had never known.