Ship Names - The Right Way

as published in The Naval SITREP, issue #6, in January 1996

Most warships of corvette size and larger are named - for people, places, virtues, events, animals, even plants or minerals. The process of naming a ship is called commissioning, and is equivalent to baptizing a baby. The ceremony, loaded with tradition, “brings the ship to life.”

 

A common - far too common - error in referring to ships is to say “the USS Iwo Jima.” This is like to referring to one of your friends as “the Jeff” or “the Mary.” A ship’s name is its name, and the language used should reflect that. It helps to remember that a prefix like USS or HMS is equivalent to “Mr.” in front of a name, or more properly “Ms.” It is a formal mode of address. Although many august sources, and many in the Navy itself use “the,” it is incorrect.

 

With that out of the way, I can describe how a ship’s name is used in print. There is a system that we try to follow. A ship’s name, Iwo Jima, is italicized. Some classes are named for the first ship of the class, for example, Spruance. Other classes may be named after a category, like the British “Flower” or “Tribal” classes. These class names are not italicized, because they are not the actual name of a ship.

 

Similarly, the NATO codenames of Russian or Chinese vessels are not italicized. In other words, Petropavlosk is a member of the Kara class. Some folks like to capitalize it as “KARA” but it can make text look too blocky. This can get tricky. Some commissioned ships do not have names. We now know that most Russian subs are assigned random hull numbers. Since they are commissioned vessels, the hull number is their “name” and should be italicized. For example, the Russian Typhoon (NATO codename) class includes the units TK-208 and TK-12.

 

One other convention: We now know the names of almost all Soviet/ Russian equipment, but the NATO code names are still in common use. If we use the Russian name of a piece of equipment, we will accompany it with the NATO designation in square brackets. For example, we could refer to the Project 971 Bars [Akula] class sub. NATO designations will appear in brackets only to distinguish them from the Russian designation. We haven’t always been consistent in the past, but it’s never too late to get organized.

 

Thanks to Mike Markowitz for his clarity of thought.

 

BT