Re: Indy's Civilian Ship Names - constructive criticism

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004, John Brewer 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."

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
> insurance company that helped finance its construction.

Wonder if he predeceased his ship?

> 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.

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.

Brian