I don't know if anyone had responded to Indy's Unoffical GZG Civilian
Ship Registery - http://www.bcpl.net/~indy/full-thrust/civie_roster.html
- I haven't gone through the whole list archive yet, but here are my
comments on this...
The names for science/survey vessels are SPOT ON. The names for
freighters & liners would be embarrassing if spray-painted across the
side of a van or a monster truck. If someone is going to trust delivery of
their cargo across interstellar distances, it doesn't help if the ship
intrusted is named "Puppies On Acid."
Allow me to provide you with some realistic sounding nomenclature for civilian
ships...
For commercial ships that are privately owned or owned by smaller companies,
they are usually named for personalities of respect that are
NOT well-known outside of that particular company or the business world.
The ill-fated Edmound Fitzgerald was named for the president of the
insurance company that helped finance its construction. For your own
commercial freighter, simply use the name of someone of respect in your
community that would not be well-known outside of your community - Your
high school principal, home room teacher, general manager at work, dean of
your college, president of your bank, member of your town counsel,
ect - whatever name would sound best.
Q-ships would use the same nomenclature as unarmed freighters. The
advantage of a Q-ship is that it is indistinguishable from unarmed ships
before it first fires its weapons - Giving a Q-ship a name like "Killer
Of Giants" or "Bird Of Prey" kind of tips your hand.
Commercial ships that belong to larger, more well-known corporations
would have the name of the corporation followed by the name of the
ship's home port. The ill-fated Exxon Valdez was owned by Exxon and its
home port was Valdez, Alaska. If more than one ship in a corporation's fleet
is based from the same port, then the names can be further suffixed by the
names Exchange, Trader, Resource, Market, Merchant, Finance, Commerce,
Conveyer, or Explorer.
EXAMPLE - Three of the major freighter owned by ITTT (known by the
call-sign, "I-TRI") based from Albion are named "I-TRI ALBION TRADER",
"I-TRI ALBION MERCHANT", and "I-TRI ALBION EXPLORER".
Names of liners should convey a sense of adventure, romance, luxury,
comfort, and sometimes speed. Names of modern-day luxury cruise ships
would work very well for NAC liners. Liners for FSE would have names like
Normandie, Ile de France, Andalusia, Italia, and Andria Doria. Liners for NSL
would have names like Empress of Vienna, Princess of Bavaria, and Edelweiss.
Commercial ships and liners for ESU would have Chinese names that translate
into "rising cloud" or "swift breeze".
Passenger and cargo ships with very good & fast drives would have names that
include the words "clipper" or "express".
Japanese ships would have virtually any Japanese family name suffixed
with the word "Maru", and it would sound realistic - Kobehashi Maru,
Tsukino Maru, Kanzaki Maru, ect...
I invite your comments - and yours, Indy.
From: "John Brewer" <JBrewer@webtv.net>
> The names for freighters & liners would be embarrassing if
Some companies will undoubtedly have traditions like the ones John mentioned;
on the other hand, it's entirely possible that other companies will have
different traditions, just to show that they're innovative; or the official
name might be something boring and the "name" is just the crew's irreverent
nickname. When I arrange for freight to come from England, I don't know the
name of the ship until the freight company tells me, and I don't really
care if it's _Cosco Norfolk_ (which it was, this last one) or _Puppies
on Acid_ as long as it arrives on time (which it didn't).
> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004, John Brewer wrote:
> I don't know if anyone had responded to Indy's Unoffical GZG Civilian
Someone's been reading a lot of Ian M. Banks. All the ships in the Culture
have names like "Problem Child" and "You Look Like A Nail" - but they're
mostly autonomous, self-contained multi-kilometre long superships, not
tramp freighters.
Actually, a lot of the names on that list look like the sort of 'names'
I've seen on towtrucks & highway rigs - "Miss Behaving" and stuff like
that...
> The ill-fated Edmound Fitzgerald was named for the president of the
Wonder if he predeceased his ship?
> Commercial ships that belong to larger, more well-known corporations
Chevron has named ships after board members & high-level employees. This
got to be... inconvenient... when Condoleeza Rice joined W's cabinet. (Yes,
they'd named an oil tanker after her. Google for it.)
Still, "Random Semi-Important Person's Name Here" is an easy way of
inventing freighter names.
> John Brewer wrote:
> The names for science/survey vessels are SPOT ON. The names for
Depends on the size of the ship.
"Free Trader" with crew of a dozen - "Pretty Jane", "Moron's Delight"
are both good. I've seen both names used on coastal traders here in Oz.
100,000 Ton Luxury Liner - "Queen O'The South", "Michaelangelo" etc. ,
something with a bit more gravitas.
Bulk Freighter - "Berwick Castle", "Deneb Enterprise", "Academician
Tsiolkovsky", "Lucky Dragon", "Fritz Lang"
FWIW OU Fleet Auxiliaries have names such as "Wombat of Doom", "Pottaroo
> John Brewer wrote:
[...]
> I invite your comments - and yours, Indy.
Hi, John,
What got me started on ship names for civie ships was some years ago when I
was in the Baltimore Harbor watching frieghters ply to and fro. One caught my
eye, and I saw the name was "Asphalt Victory". I thought that a very odd name
for a ship, but from that point on I started going out and trying to collect
names from real ships. Since I couldn't get too many over time, I started
doing some heavy internet searches of ship registries and databases. A number
of the names on the list came from that, or are slight variants on the
original name (I kept "Asphalt
Victory" as the one which started it all :-). From there I turned to
song titles and I.M.Banks (as Brian noted ;-) for more ship names.
If people have more ship names they'd like me to "register" on this page, I'm
all for it!
Mk
ps: happy new year all!
> FWIW OU Fleet Auxiliaries have names such as "Wombat of Doom",
That's "SARCo Search and Rescue", not "Vultures R Us", please. And that whole
episode was not our fault. And we'd rather that you didn't ask about it.
Please.
> Allow me to provide you with some realistic sounding nomenclature for
While that is all very logical and realistic sounding, I think many of the
names on Indy's page are great.
Perhaps people will have a different sense of what is appropriate, and
besides, "IYU" (It's Your Universe - I forget who said that first,
though it might be John A.).
Laserlight is right - traditions might change or vary, and some people
might well pick a name that seems goofy just for the sheer irreverance of it.
Or not. YMMV.
That was, however, a very interesting discussion of why names are the way they
are, so thanks!
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:07:29 -0700, Adrian Johnson <adrian@stargrunt.ca>
wrote:
> Perhaps people will have a different sense of what is appropriate, and
Some of the names are funny. It reminds me of US corporations set up to rip
the government off like MONEY TREE FARMS, GET RICH QUICK, MONEY FOR NOTHING,
etc. These are examples of real corporations designed to milk the Agriculture
subsidy budget of the US government. Then there's Eron corps like DEATH STAR.
I thought that you could also tell a Q-ship by either his/her [depends
on nationality] military fire control acquiring the target, or by doing a deep
scan via sensor rules.
> John Brewer <JBrewer@webtv.net> wrote:
I don't know if anyone had responded to Indy's Unoffical GZG Civilian
Ship Registery - http://www.bcpl.net/~indy/full-thrust/civie_roster.html
- I haven't gone through the whole list archive yet, but here are my
comments on this...
The names for science/survey vessels are SPOT ON. The names for
freighters & liners would be embarrassing if spray-painted across the
side of a van or a monster truck. If someone is going to trust delivery of
their cargo across interstellar distances, it doesn't help if the ship
intrusted is named "Puppies On Acid."
Allow me to provide you with some realistic sounding nomenclature for civilian
ships...
For commercial ships that are privately owned or owned by smaller companies,
they are usually named for personalities of respect that are
NOT well-known outside of that particular company or the business world.
The ill-fated Edmound Fitzgerald was named for the president of the
insurance company that helped finance its construction. For your own
commercial freighter, simply use the name of someone of respect in your
community that would not be well-known outside of your community - Your
high school principal, home room teacher, general manager at work, dean of
your college, president of your bank, member of your town counsel,
ect - whatever name would sound best.
Q-ships would use the same nomenclature as unarmed freighters. The
advantage of a Q-ship is that it is indistinguishable from unarmed ships
before it first fires its weapons - Giving a Q-ship a name like "Killer
Of Giants" or "Bird Of Prey" kind of tips your hand.
Commercial ships that belong to larger, more well-known corporations
would have the name of the corporation followed by the name of the
ship's home port. The ill-fated Exxon Valdez was owned by Exxon and its
home port was Valdez, Alaska. If more than one ship in a corporation's fleet
is based from the same port, then the names can be further suffixed by the
names Exchange, Trader, Resource, Market, Merchant, Finance, Commerce,
Conveyer, or Explorer.
EXAMPLE - Three of the major freighter owned by ITTT (known by the
call-sign, "I-TRI") based from Albion are named "I-TRI ALBION TRADER",
"I-TRI ALBION MERCHANT", and "I-TRI ALBION EXPLORER".
Names of liners should convey a sense of adventure, romance, luxury,
comfort, and sometimes speed. Names of modern-day luxury cruise ships
would work very well for NAC liners. Liners for FSE would have names like
Normandie, Ile de France, Andalusia, Italia, and Andria Doria. Liners for NSL
would have names like Empress of Vienna, Princess of Bavaria, and Edelweiss.
Commercial ships and liners for ESU would have Chinese names that translate
into "rising cloud" or "swift breeze".
Passenger and cargo ships with very good & fast drives would have names that
include the words "clipper" or "express".
Japanese ships would have virtually any Japanese family name suffixed
with the word "Maru", and it would sound realistic - Kobehashi Maru,
Tsukino Maru, Kanzaki Maru, ect...
I invite your comments - and yours, Indy.