Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships)

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[edit] Must we use pennant numbers for older ships?

I'd like to re-open the debate about using pennant numbers on Royal Navy and other commonwealth ships before 1945. I'm completely in favour of them after that date, but before that date they create substantial problems:

  • They aren't well known. Only small ships like destroyers and submarines wore their pennant numbers. Few of the major reference works even list the pennant numbers for pre-War or War-built carriers, battleships and cruisers.
  • They weren't permanent. To take an example, the destroyer Cossack changed her pennant three times, from L03, to F03 to G03. Many other British destroyers did the same.
  • The pennant number isn't useful for larger ships. It's much easier to disambiguate by year as it's easy to see that HMS Ark Royal (1938) must be the World War II ship. HMS Ark Royal (91) isn't helpful.

JimmyTheOne 22:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I just hit uppon HMS Barham (04), which I found rather confusing. At least for me, the pennant number convention is in direct conflict with WP:COMMONNAME. I've never seen HMS Barham (04) anywhere else. Also, this is now a weird mixture, with HMS Valiant (1914) and HMS Malaya (1915), but HMS Queen Elizabeth (00) (though usually linked to as HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) and redicrected) and HMS Barham (04). Since the pennant number is not unique anyways, I would suggest to stay with (or go back to) consistent naming by year at least for older British ships. Hull identification numbers seem to be much better established for US ships. --Stephan Schulz 12:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
If there is no loud protest, I will WP:BOLDLY updated the main page soon.--Stephan Schulz 16:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Capital letters or italics?

I was an Admin clerk onboard a ship. The ship was always typed with all capitol letters on all correspondence. My ship was the USS CORAL SEA. I believe all American ships are to have capitol letters?WHEELER 16:51, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The official U.S. Navy Style Guide (http://www.news.navy.mil/tools/view_styleguide.asp?sort=S) states:
ship names - For first reference always include USS, the ship's name and the hull number: USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).

Exceptions: Do not use "USS" for ships before 1909; or if she is not yet in commission; or she has been decommissioned and you are referring to the ship in her present state.

There is no hyphen in the hull number. In All Hands text, the ship name is in italics. On second reference, use only the ship's name. Do not use "the" in front of a ship's name: "USS San Jose," not "the USS San Jose."

Ships are to be referred to as "she" or "her."

Ships' nicknames are placed inside quotation marks on first reference only. USS LaSalle (AGF 3), the "Great White Ghost," sailed into San Diego.

Ship names are not in all caps. Use USS Seattle, not USS SEATTLE.
I note that we are violating some of these standards, but not the last one. --the Epopt 18:43, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
All caps is one of the standard ways to simulate italics on typewriters and plain ASCII, as is underlining. Stan 20:41, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Modern Australian Defence Force conventions (as prescribed in ADFP 101 Defence Writing Standards) are that ship names are written all in capitals and are not italicised eg HMAS ADELAIDE, not HMAS Adelaide. Thus it is clear that conventions vary between countries. My understanding is that the general consensus regarding using modern vs contemporary formatting/expression favours the modern custom, thus I suggest that the most appropriate convention is to use the modern formatting/expression of the country to which the ship in question belongs. Thus HMAS ADELAIDE but USS Seattle and HMS Victory. Comments? AusTerrapin 17:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Italicizing ship names on Wikipedia is not so much a reflection of national custom (some do, some don't), but rather a wiki convention for consistency across articles. Imagine an article about a naval battle, with each individual ship referred to in italics, plain text, all caps or otherwise depending on national custom - it would be rather unreadable. Further, all caps would be contraindicated by MOS:CAPS. Maralia 17:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Italicising ship names is a long-standing international convention, for both military and civilian ships, not a quirk of Wikipedia. I'm Australian too and I don't think it matters what the RAN deems to be the correct style; it's plainly unsuitable for an encyclopedia. Besides, it isn't just the RAN, militaries around the world love using CAPITALS FOR THINGS THAT DON'T NEED THEM. Maybe they get addicted to stencilling or something. See, for example, Talk:Aegis combat system#Aegis is not an acronym Grant | Talk 20:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
My impression is, as Stan said a while back, that ALL CAPS was a way of indicating italics on a typewriter.
—wwoods 16:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Military format is to use all caps for names in most situations. Outside of military records, all capitalization is unnecessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.122.45.183 (talk) 02:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dreadnought, dreadnoughts

What should be the standard capitalisation for Dreadnought/dreadnought and pre-Dreadnought/pre-dreadnought battleships? The Land 20:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I would say that the rule would be if you're referring to the HMS Dreadnought (1906) specifically, it would be capitalized, but if you're just stating something more general, like "Germany had 16 dreadnought battleships" at Jutland", it's lowercase. Hope this was helpful. Parsecboy 15:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No ship prefixes

Hi, I find the naming convention for military ships without a standard ship prefix rather odd. I mean, in the Wikipedia the title of articles is directly the name unless a clarification is in parenthesis to disambiguate (Mars and Mars (mythology)). The naming convention for military ships of "(Nationality) (type) (Name)" breaks that common usage (in fact, that articles start with e.g. "Maxim Gorky was a Soviet Red Banner light cruiser…" and not "The Soviet cruiser Maxim Gorky was a…"). Why? Does it have anything to do with hull numbers? Best regards, —surueña 18:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Guess it's more to do with the fact that most ship names are repeated, sometimes internationally, but frequently within nations; and ships are often named after people or places. So if there is no clear way of designating the ship with 'HMS' or similar it is difficult to have an unambiguous yet informative title. The Land 20:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I mean, it's OK to include in the title the "Nationality type" convention, however the usual practice in Wikipedia would be to put that disambiguation info in parenthesis, i.e. instead of Soviet cruiser Maxim Gorky why not using the more conventional Maxim Gorky (Soviet cruiser)? The year can also be included if needed (e.g. Maxim Gorky (1938 Soviet cruiser)). Of course, I can help with the renaming if you think this is sound. Best regards, —surueña 10:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry about it - there are thousands of ship articles, and there is very little wrong with the current method. The Land 10:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
This wouldn't be the first time nor the last a policy change involve thounsands of changes, I wouldn't worry about that (as I said, I can do work on this, I've lots of patience! :-). Anyway, this doesn't need to be done at once, it can be done incrementally. So, I don't want to waste our time with this proposal (I don't know much about ships, this is only to follow the usual Wikipedia conventions), please, do you really think this naming policy is adequate? Any exceptions to the rule? Thanks again for your interest! —surueña 11:21, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with The Land; the current policy seems to be working fine. -- Hongooi 13:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USS Niagara (1813)

I am sorry if this has been addressed before, but are there any exceptions to the ship naming convention. A comment was placed on the talk page of the USS Niagara (1813) saying (not very eloquently though)that the page was wrongly named and that it should be titled "US Brig Niagara (1813)". I sort of agree because I've never heard the ship called "USS". Also noticed that the replica of the Niagara is titled US Brig Niagara (replica) not "USS Niagara (replica)". Help on this matter would be appreciated. --Dtbohrer?talk•contribs 03:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Most prefixes that had been previously used by the Navy were obsoleted in the early 1900s, and Navy convention since has been to use USS even in retroactively referring to ships prior to that date. Wikipedia has followed that convention. The Niagara was commissioned by the Navy as evidenced here, so she is properly referred to as USS Niagara. Maralia 03:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
So, because the museum ship wasn't commissioned by the US Navy, it goes by its common name (US Brig Niagara). Right?
--Dtbohrer?talk•contribs 03:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
More or less; the museum folks can call her whatever they want. Note that we're retaining redirects from US Brig Niagara and US Brig Niagara (1813), should anyone try to look her up by the older name. Odd perhaps, but so is the Navy :) Maralia 04:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to bring this up again, but someone moved the museum ship article (US Brig Niagara (replica)) to USS Niagara (replica). It's commonly known as "US Brig" not "USS". Would it be OK if I moved it back? --​​​​D​​tbohrer​​​​talk•contribs 22:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It was I who originally moved the nonsensical "USS Niagara" to "US Brig Niagara". The chatter at the time was centered around the discussion page for The Battle of Lake Erie, wherefore the brief and, admittedly, inelegant summary at the vessel's talk page. That summary, however, was absolutely complete. When discussing sailing vessels, "ship" indicates a vessel of three masts, each bearing a full complement of square sails. To refer to a two-masted vessel as "United States Ship" is completely inaccurate. Perry et al. signed their correspondence as dating from "US Brig Niagara". The US Navy explains further. There was, then, nothing informal about the name "US Brig Niagara". That was the only and most formal version. As to the replica, on her commissioning, she received special dispensation from the federal government -- I am not on-site and cannot be authoritative, but I believe it was the Secretary of the Treasury's office, under whom the US Coast Guard operated -- to be, officially "US Brig Niagara", there being no danger of confusion with any extant USN vessels. Thus, it's not simply an issue of what "the museum folks" choose to call her. I submit that the standards of reference for sailing vessels, which existed for much longer than the modern practice of calling nigh on everything in USN "USS [Whatever]", should be the standard naming convention for such vessels. The number of non-ships deserving of Wikipedia entries suggests that this will not be a major inconvenience or source of confusion, and there are plenty of USS Niagara's already extant.Czrisher 17:09, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not really a matter that we should name everything by the contemporary rather than the modern. The reason is well explained on this project page already, but I replicate it here (emphasis is mine):

This is consistent with the ordinary Wikipedia naming practice of using modern names for articles even if different from the contemporary name (thus Livy, not "Titus Livius"; 205 BC, not "The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus", etc). The article should indicate how the ship was known to her contemporaries (if known), by quoting relevant documents.

Benea 18:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but we don't suggest listing Livy as "Herodotus", either, nor do we call him a Spaniard. If the use of "US Brig" is troubling, call 'em all "Niagara (XXX)", but to call a brig a ship in the title is neither modern nor SOP. As the convention makes clear, it's not necessary to write "the Victory". Why, then, should not we write "Niagara" and eschew the prefixes that seem to be at the heart of the conflict? There's a wide gap between avoiding archaisms or obsolete terms -- it would be foolish to list USS Constitution as a frigate, though she was then, because the term has taken on new meaning -- and using iinaccurate and misleading ones.Czrisher 17:07, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The number of ships requiring retitling to "US Brig" or "US Frigate" is not only daunting but confusing to the vast number of people wishing to find information about the ships. While "US Brig Niagara" might be most accurate, it doesn't pass the common sense test. After all William Jefferson Clinton is infinitely more accurate than Bill Clinton, but I wouldn't suggest that you try moving that article. "The purpose of an article's title is to enable that article to be found by interested readers, and nothing more." Trying to make a point with an article name is simply disruptive rather than helpful. Jinian 15:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prefix meanings?

It would be helpful if the Project page included a list of prefixes and their meaning. Eg:

ARA Armada de la República Argentina (Argentine naval prefix)
CSS Confederate States Ship
HMS Her/His Majesty's Ship
HMAS Her/His Majesty's Australian Ship
HMHS Her/His Majesty's Hospital Ship
HMNZS Her/His Majesty's New Zealand Ship (NZ Naval prefix)
M/V Motor Vessel
RMS Royal Mail Ship
SS Steam Ship
TSS Twin screw steamer
USS United States Ship

And there are doubtless more.

In the meantime, if any one can complete the blanks in the above...

-Arb. 23:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

see Ship prefix. I actually had to use it earlier today to look up TSS for an article you just wrote, heh. Maralia 23:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
There's plenty more. USNS, for instance: civil crew under authority of USN. Trekphiler (talk) 01:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional ships?

Is it recommended for fictional ships to follow the naming conventions in this article? If yes, how are we to resolve disputes where factions claim a ship is not a class and such? Jappalang (talk) 12:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

We haven't thoroughly addressed this at WP:SHIPS, but I think following the naming conventions here would be wise. I don't understand your reference to a dispute; could you clarify? Maralia (talk) 14:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I initially came here for clarification due to a recent edit in the computer game article Descent: FreeSpace — The Great War, where the contributor named a ship GTD Hades while other ship designations (my previous contributions sourced from the older version) were non italicized. As I was typing out the first question, it occured to me what would happen if (let us say for a sci-fi novel article) due to a case of bad writing, the naming of a ship could be ambiguous between its name or a class; one side decides to claim the name used for a ship is a class (hence not needing italics) while another side rages on it is (hence must be italicized). Proof is difficult as the author might not have thought carefully nor published clarification on the ships involved. Note that in the case which popped into my head, the name is not explicitly tied to any ship and hence can be disputed as to whether it is a specific ship name and a class, or even if the side with the fictional ships has adopted the convention of naming the first ship in the class with the same name. Jappalang (talk) 23:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The way we style real life ships is to italicise the class if it is named after a specific ship, for example the Sentinel class cruisers take their name from HMS Sentinel (both names are italicised). However where the name is not taken from a specific ship, eg the Tribal class frigates are named after Tribes of the world, not a ship named HMS Tribal, then the class name is not italicised. So if you had a fictional ship, you could use the same method, e.g. the imperial star destroyer Executor is an Executor class super star destroyer. But the Earth Empire ship Venus is a Planet class star cruiser. GTD Hades is a Hades class xxx. It seems like it might solve your little dispute, if you italicise the names, they could equally refer to the ship as an individual ship, or as a class. If I've misunderstood what the dispute is, please feel free to clarify it a little more. Benea (talk) 23:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Benea's explanation is spot on, but I'll offer a summary to ensure nothing gets lost in the detail: the name of a ship is always italicized; the name of a ship's class is italicized only if if the class is named after a ship. Maralia (talk) 00:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you both, I am going ahead to adopt the naming conventions for the FreeSpace articles. To further clarify, my concern of a dispute is imaginary (a worry for the future). Thank you Maralia for presenting a summarized case, as I think it can help me present my concern clearly. Since the name of a ship's class is italicized only if the class is named after a ship, what should we do if it is unknown or ambiguous if the class is named after a ship in fiction and two sides argue over it. For example, a novel might have a character exclaiming "The Callaway frigate is a danger to us all!" without explicitly stating anywhere it is a class nor the definite existence of a frigate named the Callaway. Without definitie articles/sourcebooks to prove otherwise, what would be the best approach to take to sooth both sides? Jappalang (talk) 01:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
All you can do is go by what you have; if so very little is said about a ship in the main source, then it probably isn't a terribly important part of the plot and therefore won't make much of an appearance, if any, in the resulting article. If it needs to be there for some reason, a direct quotation would be a wiser route since you can avoid the dreaded WP:OR. Maralia (talk) 04:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

<--I think you may have opened a can of worms, here. Flower class corvette already (to my mind) violates the convention; the lead ship was Gladiolus, not Flower. Don't you get conflict there? Or have I completely misread you? (It's been a long day...) Trekphiler (talk) 01:48, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you have - 'italicise the class if it is named after a specific ship', and let me just emphasise the IF in that section. And please feel free to refer to that specific talkpage for further clarification. Benea (talk) 02:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merchant ships

Almost all of the discussion and article is concerned with military vessels. Am I reading it correctly that if a merchant ship has been renamed several times, there should be a redirect page for each name? Also, which name should be redirected to? The first, the last, the one the ship is most famous for? Cases that illustrate the problem:- MS Athina B, MS Riverdance and MS Explorer. Mjroots (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If practical, a redirect from each name with the article at the most famous name, or the name under which she was involved in her most notable actions. ie for the examples you quote, they are at the names they either ran aground or sank under. If there is no one outstanding famous name, then I think you have to use your judgement, but with the three you quote, I would say that there is no issue over them being at their correct titles. Benea (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions for naval ship lists

There do not seem to be adequate conventions for the way naval ship lists are named. For example, there is a convention that countries come last. Thus List of ships of Canada rather than List of Canadian ships. I would assume that this would extend to navies as well, thus List of ships of the Canadian Navy, rather than List of Canadian Navy ships. However, because this had not been explicitly set out, the actual naming of navy ship lists is an inconsistent mess.

An exceptionally bold editor has recently renamed many of the world's major navy ship lists in alignment with the second option, for example List of Canadian Navy ships. The issue extends well beyond this to many other naval articles, and not just lists, for example Frigates of the Royal Navy verses Royal Navy frigates. --Geronimo20 (talk) 00:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking more closely at the country-specific guidelines, it says: This will usually hold true in other geography-specific topics, such as for cities, continents, provinces, states, etc. This extends naturally to navies – which are certainly geography-specific. Thus List of ships of the Canadian Navy and not List of Canadian Navy ships. However it seems to me that this should be explicitly spelt out in Naming conventions (ships) so the prevailing confusion about naming lists can be cleaned up. --Geronimo20 (talk) 07:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm rather surprised that no one has commented thus far but I think you're on the right track here. The collection of ship lists in general vary greatly and there should be a more stringent guideline for them. I see nothing wrong with the changes you have made to the guidelines. My own experience with ship lists is that far too many of them are unsourced, hard to navigate, are redundant of others and don't follow their own protocol. --Brad (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
My experience closely mirrors what Brad101 said above. I for one would certainly love to see some more standardization to these articles. --Kralizec! (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some disagreement

There has been some conversation on this topic after the above discussions took place. The point has been brought up, for example, that List of ships of the Canadian Navy is awkward when compared to List of Canadian Navy ships. List of ships of the United States Army is what brought the subject around again. However, in renaming ship categories, the convention Ships of the Canadian Navy has been used rather than Canadian Navy ships which seems to contradict the current naming convention. I'm not sure at this point whether there will ever be a consensus gathered to solve this issue. Lack of input will likely mean it remains unsolved. --Brad (talk) 23:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

My support for List of XXXX ships, and a general XXX ships format - if you think about it, 'List of United States Army ships' isn't all THAT cumbersome at all. Is anyone aware of the procedure for clarifying such a naming convention? While I may have been bold in the past on renames, I am not that sure about how to go about it officially. Ingolfson (talk) 04:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that List of XXXX ships is not awkward, which is what I was pointing out, even though I had agreed with Geronimo above. Once I started to apply the convention, I saw the awkwardness. This naming convention as I'm aware is not an official part of the Manual of Style so getting a change may require some effort. --Brad (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] unit naming

a comment on the Coastal Forces example. Coastal Forces is the organization name not a descriptive phrase ("Coastal forces") so if there are other Coastal Forces then following general wikiedia conventions it would be Coastal Forces (Royal Navy) as with Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom).GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:46, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] dab page question - same name, different nations

For pages listed in [[Category:Ship disambiguation]], is there / should there be a standard way to link to another nation's similarly named ship? For instance USS Artemis and HMS Artemis? I added a "See also..." but then figured there are way too many to do this by hand. :) Thx. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You might use: {{For|ships of the Royal Navy|HMS Artemis}} which gives:
For ships of the Royal Navy, see HMS Artemis.
and can be placed at the very top of the page. You could adjust the text accordingly if you think of a better way to describe it. --Brad (talk) 02:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)