Re: Ship Naming Convention (was: RE: What, no messages?)

At 02:16 07/04/98 GMT, you wrote:
>On Mon, 6 Apr 1998 21:49:48 -0500, Thomas Barclay
<Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca>
>wrote:
>
SNIP
>>One could follow some sort of a heroic naming scheme
>>
>>BB: The MacArthur, the Schwartzkopf, the Powell, the Patton, the 
>>Montgomery, the Rommel, the Eisenhower.
>
>No offense, but I'd hardly put Schwartkopf or Powell in the same group
as
>Patton and Rommel. Also, if using the FT background you'd want to avoid
heroes
>from another region. The NAC wouldn't use Rommel but the NSL would. I
like
>using these names myself, though I like to go for less obvious names:
>Tokugawa, Slim, Wolfe, Augustus Adolphus, Tecumseh. Funny how American
SF
>writers (such as on Babylon 5) are quick to go with WW2 and beyond
names but
>ignore some good ones from the civil war: Jackson, Longstreet, Early,
>Sheridan, Meade, Buford, not to mention Lee, Grant, and Sherman
(Sherman may
>be too "divisive" as might be Sheridan, though both have had tanks
named after
>them; I wouldn't expect to see a Forrest class ship, though).

Although the USN had Forrest Sherman class DDs.

>>CA: The Montcalm, the Wolfe, the Ney, the Bonaparte, the Wellington, 
>>the Adolphus, etc
>
>Whoops. Looks like you cover some of mine. I can supply a bunch of
Japanese
>heroes if anyone wants, along the lines of Tokugawa, Takeda, and
Nobunaga. 
>
>>CL: The Horatio, The Xenophon, the Agrippa, the Augustus, etc.
>>CV: The Nimitz, the Bishop, the Rickenbaker, the Richtoffen, the 
>>Jodl, etc. 
>
>WW1 aces would be good. Historical note: some 25%+ of British aces were
>Canadian. There were a disproportionate number of Australians as well.
>
>You've got Ball, Boelcke, Immelmann, Caldwell, Brown, Nungusser,
Lowenhardt,
>etc.
>
>>I don't think one ever needs run out of fascinating and useful ship 
>>names. The world is so full of wonderful material that there is no 
>>shortage. 
>
>Quite true. I like battle names, myself. My favourite ship name is the
Vimy
>Ridge. I also like some weirdnesses you'd NEVER see in real life. In
the
>GenCon game last year, I had Debacle class ships: The Dieppe, The
Stalingrad,
>and The Somme.
>
>
>Allan Goodall	      agoodall@sympatico.ca

Translating names can be fun, too eg "Hiryu" = Flying Dragon => "Draco
Volans"

Stalingrad?  Debacle?  There was I thinking it was a famous victory...
;-)

By the way in a "heroic naming" scheme, I think you'd run out of ships
(and
chamber pots) LONG before you were reduced to naming anything after
Jodl.

cheers,
Rob (one of the short dark apelike variety of Celts)

"Rob Paul

Dept of Zoology
Oxford University
South Parks Road
Oxford
(01865) 271124
----------------------------------------------
"Once again, villainy is rotting meat 
before the maggots of justice!"
"