Royal Navy Ship names

[furious]

While this question is connected to do with WitP it's more of a general history question, but seeing as how there are so many of you history buffs here i was hoping you'd be able to help.
When new Royal Navy ships were commisioned in World war II how were their names decided upon? I realise that certin ship classes would all be named after a topic, for instance the 'County' class cruisers, but, if for instance you are launching 12 'K' class destroyers who decided which 'K' words will be used, was there a naming comitee, were a random number of words put in a hat and the first set number drawn were applied?


Thanks in advance

steve

[DrewMatrix]

who decided which 'K' words will be used, was there a naming comitee, were a random number of words put in a hat and the first set number drawn were applied?

I do not know how the names beginning with "K" were chosen in the British navy. But your question did remind me of the explanation in "Hell in a Very Small Place" by Bernard Fall as to how the various French firebases at Dien Bien Phu were named. They were all French first names ("Yvette, "Marie", things like that) of wives of members of the French high command or military. Per Fall the commander (de Castries) was, uh, commemorating past relationships.

But then that was not the stolid Royal Navy. That was the French.

[Bobthehatchit]

ORIGINAL: furious

While this question is connected to do with WitP it's more of a general history question, but seeing as how there are so many of you history buffs here i was hoping you'd be able to help.
When new Royal Navy ships were commisioned in World war II how were their names decided upon? I realise that certin ship classes would all be named after a topic, for instance the 'County' class cruisers, but, if for instance you are launching 12 'K' class destroyers who decided which 'K' words will be used, was there a naming comitee, were a random number of words put in a hat and the first set number drawn were applied?


Thanks in advance

steve

Think firstly they would check the list of ship names previously in comission with the RN in the past and re-use them, the rest i guess they just made up![:'(]

[DrewMatrix]

the rest i guess they just made up

Kibitzer
Kerfuffle
Kleptomaniac
Kindergarten (scratch that, might be mistaken for a German destroyer)
Konsternation
Kabob
Kaleidescope
Keelhauler (give that one a strict captain)
Kyphosis (one that took a torpedo midships)
Karate (scratch that one too. Sound too Japanese)

Piece of cake.

[Bobthehatchit]

ORIGINAL: Beezle

the rest i guess they just made up

Kibitzer
Kerfuffle
Kleptomaniac
Kindergarten (scratch that, might be mistaken for a German destroyer)
Konsternation
Kabob
Kaleidescope
Keelhauler (give that one a strict captain)
Kyphosis (one that took a torpedo midships)
Karate (scratch that one too. Sound too Japanese)

Piece of cake.

Hehe Nice try![;)]

[furious]

Think firstly they would check the list of ship names previously in comission with the RN in the past and re-use them, the rest i guess they just made up![:'(]





I wonder what joker came up with HMS Beaver then?

[The Dude]

in any case RN ship names are very fitting and very cool 99% of the time. Implacable, Indefatigeable, i mean i doubt kids today even know these words exist

[byron13]

My favorites were the Contagious, Outrageous, and Indeterminable. I think the first two were battleships and the last was a carrier.

[8D]

[Chris21wen]

The Royal Navy has ship names which go back in time for hundreds of years, and like other navies, are called back into service as necessity dictates. ARK ROYAL; ROYAL SOVEREIGN, INVINCIBLE, REVENGE and so on are ship names that have been used many times. Over the past 400 years or so of the formal existence of the Royal Navy there have been some 24, 000 ships3. RN ship names extend across a wide spectrum from counties and towns, to bird species, to heroic individuals and places, and the mythical Gods. The naming conventions have evolved over the many years of the Navy and the origins are unclear.

Note that unlike the US, ships are never given names of people. Who was ARLEIGH BURKE anyway.[:D]

Actually not true as Shore Establishments (still ships though) do have names such as Collingwood, Nelson, Drake etc.

[Chris21wen]

Who said never?[;)]. Capital ships were often named after people. Like Howe, Anson etc. One tradition of naming the first capital ship of a new reign after the monarch. E.g King George V . Title were often used like HMS Duke of York or the HMS Prince of Wales (sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers in the South China Sea, 10 December 1941),

[steveh11Matrix]

Um: Nelson and Rodney, Hood, I'm sure there were others that slip my mind at the moment...

But yes, in general, I like the RN names. I have a game at home which allows me to create my own data files for ships, and as a bit of fun I added 3 1922-style battlecruisers to the GRand Fleet in 1918: HMS Hypothetical, Improbable and Impossible...

Steve.

[Chris21wen]

Note that there are all naval.

[Belisarius]

"HMS Kerfuffle"

Haha. That's a keeper. [:D]

[strawbuk]

HMS Kalamity would be apporproate for K class DDs eg the Kelly as captained by Mountbattan - great diplomat and all that but one of the few guys to reverse a ship into a minefield.

Please adopt a suitably Noel Coward tone when replying...

[Feinder]

The "Malaya", a battleship of the Queen Elizabeth class, was paid for entirely by bonds sold in the colony of Malaya.

Image borrowed from : battleships-cruisers.co.uk


-F-

[DBS]

Royal Navy ship names were, and still are, decided by a specific Committee. They still have to be approved by the reigning monarch - after all, they are His or Her Majesty's Ships - although this is pretty much a formality these days. There is almost always a common theme within a class - sometimes an initial letter, sometimes a genre of nouns and adjectives, such as the Flower class - albeit with the possibility as ever of exceptions for particular situations. As mentioned already, HM Ships Australia, New Zealand and Malaya in the Dreadnought/First World War period were all named for the Dominions which financed their construction. The current class of destroyers - Type 42s - are named for major regional towns, but their replacments, the Type 45, are going to be named with initial Ds - Daring, Dauntless, Diamond, Dragon, Defender and Duncan. Thus you have two heroic attributes, a gem, a generic military descriptor, a mythical beast and a famous RN admiral.

Nowadays, with a smaller RN and so many names to choose from, the arguments can be quite fierce as to which to go with. For example, some are unhappy that one of the two new large carriers planned for 2012 will not be another Ark Royal. Rather, the names already chosen are HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - the latter not used since Force Z.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: byron13

My favorites were the Contagious, Outrageous, and Indeterminable. I think the first two were battleships and the last was a carrier.

[8D]

I believe the names you are seeking are the "Spurious" and the "Outrageous"..., names
given to the totally under-armoured Battlecruisers Furious and Courageous when they
first arrived at Scapa Flow.

[strawbuk]

I always have a soft spot for Flower class corvettes - saved our bacon in 41/42 (and indeed the powdered egg and avgas) and great names for little kilers - Pennywort,Bluebell and of course the famous Compass Rose..(ahem)

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Note that there are all naval.

Yea.., right. Like the "Marlborough" or the "Iron Duke" (aka the Duke of Wellington)

[byron13]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: byron13

My favorites were the Contagious, Outrageous, and Indeterminable. I think the first two were battleships and the last was a carrier.

[8D]

I believe the names you are seeking are the "Spurious" and the "Outrageous"..., names
given to the totally under-armoured Battlecruisers Furious and Courageous when they
first arrived at Scapa Flow.

Actually, it was meant to be a joke. But if there really was an "Outrageous," I guess I've been busted. I'll just change the name to the Improbable as above - another good one.