The name means almost everything… but not the registry?!

[USS Belmont]

We are all familiar with the naming and registry setup for Federation Starships. However, not all names are created equal and certainly the registry is even more weird.

Since ST IV, we have been introduced to the concept that not only ship’s names get carried over, but so can the registry as well, with the addition of an alphabet suffix - NCC-1701-A.

However, since the introduction of that we have seen some variations of this concept.

USS Excelsior NCC-2000 - A ship worthy to be preserved at the Fleet Museum, yet there is no NCC-2000-A? There is a NCC-27445 in the 24th century and a NCC-42037 in early 25th century until it got blown to bits at Frontier Day. So maybe Sulu and his crew are not famous enough to get the letter suffix?

USS Yamato - The Galaxy Class Yamato was mentioned in dialogue as NCC-1305-E, only to be changed to NCC-71807 when it finally appeared on screen. Production staff said it was a production error to use 1305-E, but one would think this is not the only Yamato ever in Starfleet?

USS Stargazer - Again a ship worthy for the Fleet Muesum, yet no NCC-2893-A, but the 25th century version is NCC-82893?

USS Titan - The first one is NCC-1777 in 23rd Century with Savvik as her captain, but the second Titan is NCC-80102 with Riker as her Captain. The third one is NCC-80102-A, so both Savvik and Sulu didn’t do as great as Riker?

While we don’t know the registry of the 32nd century version of the Enterprise, we know the 32nd century Constitution class USS Excalibur is NCC-1664-M. So the Excalibur crew must have done something awesome back in the 23rd century.

My bone is when do they go with the suffix and then do they not? There is the Defiant-A and Voyager-J, then there is that weird thing they did with the Stargazer? I don’t think there is a ship out there with the registry NCC-91701 or something like that? So names get carried over all the time, but the registry gets weird, largely inconsistent treatment.

 

[1001001]

Moving to Trek Tech

 

[BillJ]

My bone is when do they go with the suffix and then do they not?

It is a TV show, there is no rhyme or reason for the suffix.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

You have to save the Earth from a Whale Probe, return from the Delta Quadrant or be William Riker for your ship to get a sequel. Starfleet went 125 years without any ships getting a suffix as far as we know, and then for 98 years it was just the Enterprises that got a letter. Voyager was the first ship after the Enterprise to get an A and then the Titan followed... until it got its name revoked. And those are all the exceptions to the rule until Discovery's time, as far as I'm aware. (Except for the Defiant, but that had its own weird exception where the registry wasn't changed at all.)

 

[Ithekro]

My assumption for these odd registration numbers is Starfleet inserting a starship into the construction queue outside it's regular contracts. Meaning either the starship that was supposed to be built might still be built with its hull number, or be deleted instead.

For the Enterprise, I get the impression that one of the early Excelsiors would have been given the name and a new number (NCC-2001 let's say). But when the Federation council gives Kirk a new ship, that ship isn't ready by a long shot. So instead they grab a Constitution and reorder it as a number of the previous Enterprise but with an "A" added. That Excelsior gets reordered with a "B".

USS Voyager gets similar treatment I suppose due to her return way earlier than expected.

USS Defiant just comes off as weird if it just gets its old hull number. But it's The Sisco. The universe abides him his "pimp hand" of a starship.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Names are primarily reused if it's an enduring ideal, concept, or motif. (Discovery, Stargazer, Excelsior, Enterprise, etc)

If a particular ship by that name distinguishes itself in a significant way as Enterprise did (over and over), the number is re-used for future ships, with an added letter or different prefix to tell them apart.

 

[Yaroze86]

I like to think there is a real registry and a "linage" registry. So, USS Yamato would be both 1305-E and 71807. But for all intentions and purposes 71807 is what she displays. Like the Excalibur 1664 had lots of ships after then in 2384 good ol' 1664 came back. Maybe Starfleet later keeps the original registries due to the length of them in Disco season 3-5. This really only works though if the ship was of importance and was taken out of service by something not of the ships fault.

 

[B.J.]

For the Defiant, I know it was a result of just reusing the effects shots. But in my head canon, Starfleet changed the registry on the hull to the original Defiant's registry to "thumb their noses" at the Dominion. The actual registry of the ship is still NCC-75633, even though they renamed it from Sao Paulo to Defiant.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

So which Names & Registries are confirmed to have some Registry Permanence & Lineage?
Here's what I can dig up on Memory Alpha:

<Name>-<Suffix Letter>
<NCC Registry>-<Suffix Letter> (_ ◄ Means the original bearer of the vessel name w/o any Suffix)

USS Enterprise-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-1701-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = _, A, B, C, D, E, F, G)
NOTE: NCC-1701-J is considered a "Alternate Universe/Time-Line", so it might come into existence at a later date or be finally confirmed.

USS Voyager-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-74656-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = _, A, B, D, J)

USS Discovery-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-1031-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = _, A)

USS Tikhov-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-1067-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = M)

USS Excalibur-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-1664-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = _, M)

USS Yelchin-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-4774-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = E)

USS Titan-<Suffix Letter>
NCC-80102-<Suffix Letter>: (Confirmed Suffixes = _, A)


Surprisingly, after all these years, not as many permanent Name / Lineages.

 

[USS Belmont]

I also have another question, (okay, I know this is a TV show, I am thinking in universe, okay?) does Starfleet ever end a suffix? Not every suffix ship keeps going until -Z (then they go -AA?), right? So, can I infer that some crew or some ship messed up so bad that they end using the suffix?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I also have another question, (okay, I know this is a TV show, I am thinking in universe, okay?) does Starfleet ever end a suffix?

So far, it hasn't happened.

Not every suffix ship keeps going until -Z (then they go -AA?), right?

Given the time frame, it hasn't been long enough in the timeline to see a ship go to -Z.

I'd assume they start with -αA, then -αB, ..., etc.
Mix in the Greek Alphabet with the Latin Alphabet.
But that's WAY in the future for StarFleet to decide.

So, can I infer that some crew or some ship messed up so bad that they end using the suffix?

I'd hope nothing happens that bad that would become a precedent.
Honestly it's a horrible thought IMO.

You don't want a StarFleet crew to be associated with something like that, much less come up with that kind of situation.

 

[matthunter]

I mean, we'll eventually get the 132nd Doctor.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's probably up to a committee, which was run by someone who HATED suffixes but they died during Picard's second season, at which point the flood gates opened and they became the norm.

 

[Redshirt214]

Honestly the hull number + suffix thing is a little silly from a Naval tradition standpoint, as it's the name not the hull number of ships (which often can and do change hull number and even designation throughout their service lives) in real Navies that is perpetuated.

But the meaning of hull numbers has always been a bit arbitrary. Jeffries for example was labeling the refit the 1701A on his initial plans (or maybe the original concept drawings), and seemed to be of the opinion that the suffix ought to kick in for every refit.

If we assume that hull numbers are for the large part not terribly synonymous with starships the way that names are, then I think we can assume that pre-Enterprise-A the system was never particualrly contemplated. But then, much like in real life, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 got so famous that even her hull number was part of the historic record (I think we can see this effect on screen in Nero's reaction to Kirk in ST'09, when he first sees the Enterprise it's "OH NO!" moment for him, because once James T. Kirk & Co show up you know that your goose is cooked. Even in cannon, it's the Enterprise.).

I think it makes the most sense that, generally, the policy with #+A-Z registries is that they are granted by Presidential decree, from the Federation President. So they are granted rarely, and the Enterprise was granted it first for her crew's actions to save Earth from the Whale Probe, with later Presidents continuing to grant new suffixes for subsequent Enterprises, and the tradition only getting extended to other ships later (arguably the Voyager deserves that honor since aside from her homecoming story she's probably done more than any ship aside from the NX-01 in terms of mapping new space and contacting new species.). Meanwhile, Starfleet can name its ships whatever they want, and can probably change the hull numbers arbitrarily too. Which means that ship name and registry inconsistencies are completely explicable. It wouldn't even been half as weird as actual ship name shenanigans, like the hot minuet the US Navy SecNav in the 1870s decided to rename all the ships with indigenous names into classical names!

 

[Ithekro]

Ships being renamed on the slip is not a new thing (the US Navy renamed a ton of ships in World War II as replacements for sunk ships, and just shifted the ship's original name to either another ship down the line or started a new ship with that name). But for the Federation, at least with the Enterprise, I've come to the conclusion that Starfleet had already ordered a new USS Enterprise (the one that became the Excelsior-class Enterprise-B) when the Federation council gifted Captain Kirk a new ship. Starfleet wouldn't have the new Enterprise ready for almost a decade, but they wanted Kirk to have an "Enterprise" as not only was the name a legend, but his career and reputation was built around that starships. Sure they could have just given him command of say the USS Yorktown and called it a day, but when you have what is essentially a living legend being given a starship by the Federation Council...you sort of want to push "Legend" out there. Especially if you are having specific issues with the Klingons. So, Starfleet takes a starships (be it old or new) strips it of its name and instead of keeping the old hull number of that ship, decides to renumber both that ship, and the recently ordered Excelsior-class Enterprise at the same time to recall the legendary NCC-1701 starship that was just lost. Essentially slapping in two hulls outside the normal construction contract system (perhaps they managed to get additional finding this way?) The result, and recently refurbished NCC-1701-A Constitution II-class starship and the Excelsior-class NCC-1701-B laid down to be commissioned on a Tuesday.

 

[David cgc]

I think we can see this effect on screen in Nero's reaction to Kirk in ST'09, when he first sees the Enterprise it's "OH NO!" moment for him, because once James T. Kirk & Co show up you know that your goose is cooked. Even in cannon, it's the Enterprise.

Well, it’s more that he knows it’s Spock’s old ship, and realizes he can get twice the emotional torture from destroying Vulcan, which he’ll be denied if he kills him fast by destroying the Enterprise immediately.

 

[CaptChris42]

I've usually seen the registry system as having shifted over time. Originally it was lot looser - ships came out in batches or 'flights', and sometimes could even change registry after a refit or a technonology upgrade across the fleet. Ships in the same class would cluster together in the numbers at first - but with more and more variants and refits that became less and less consistent.

Later registries would get even reused completely (perhaps before the Oberths too) and around the NCC-500s, likely.

And then by the end of the 2200s, Starfleet just streamlined the whole thing, putting most ships into the same system, and greatly swelling the numbers afterward. Including adding smaller ships, cargo craft (a lot anyway) and more.

It's possible alternate prefixes were still common before that also - including NAR, NSP, NFT and so on.

 

[Forbin]

When I do a kitbash, I'll try to think of a hull number that means something in relation to the name, but my brain doesn't always come up with something. i.e. when I did a freighter name Edmund Fitzgerald, I used the date of the sinking for the number (NCC-11075). But sometimes I just pick a random number that would fit in the time period the bash is set in, or a number that meant something to me personally. A couple of times I just used the year I built it (NCC-2014)

 

[Tiran O'Saurus]

USS Titan - The first one is NCC-1777 in 23rd Century with Savvik as her captain, but the second Titan is NCC-80102 with Riker as her Captain. The third one is NCC-80102-A, so both Savvik and Sulu didn’t do as great as Riker?

There was another Titan, the Loknar-class one we see a picture of in Lower Decks. Maybe that was 1777-A, but it was so bad they decided to reset the numbering.

 

[Ithekro]

The Loknar-class USS Titan (NCC-2752) if one uses FASA numbers, which did not follow direct time of construction, but some class type system I suppose. One could guess that the Franz Joseph ships followed a ship class numbering system that was also not linear outside their own classes, with the Hermes and Ptolemy classes being low numbers next to the Constitution and Federation class higher number, even though many of the smaller ships would have been built during or after construction of the larger starships.

The Loknar-class USS Titan would be a contemporary for the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) while the Shangri'La-class USS Titan (NCC-1777) was a contemporary for the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) and the USS Excelsior (NCC-2000) and USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B). It is assumed the 2290s Titan was assigned the role of Federation Flagship while Kirk's crew was likely doing smaller missions and training cruises with their Enterprise while the new Excelsior-class starship was being constructed. That USS Excelsior was not the flagship likely has its place with Captain Sulu either not wanting that role, or due to his involvement in the theft of USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) Starfleet didn't want to give his ship that title, enough though he had earned Excelsior prior to the theft of USS Enterprise.

The Loknar-class starship would have been very old by the 2280s, much like the Constitution-class starships. So, replacing it would have been on the table like replacing USS Enterprise was being done with the Excelsior-class starship. If one views the "Four Years War" as the Klingon War of the 2250s, then that USS Titan would have been built during the war as a means to fighting the Klingons with better technology on a smaller ship than a Constitution-class starship. That would make the vessel 30 years old around the time they would have ordered the Shangri'La class starship. Going by FASA stardates roughly translated, its last refit would have been in or before 2280.