List of ship names of the Royal Navy

Components
Surface fleet
Fleet Air Arm
Submarine Service
Royal Naval Reserve
Nursing Service (QARNNS)
Royal Fleet Auxiliary
Royal Marines Reserve
Special Boat Service
History and future
History of the Royal Navy
History of the Royal Marines
Customs and traditions
Future of the Royal Navy
Ships
Current fleet
Current deployments
Historic ships
Personnel
The Admiralty
Senior officers
Uniforms
Officer rank insignia
Ratings rank insignia
Related civilian agencies of
the Ministry of Defence
Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service
(now privatised)
Ships of the Royal Navy

A – B – C – D – E – F – G
H – I – J – K – L – M – N
O – P – Q – R – S – T – U
V – W – X – Y – Z

fleet aircraft carriers
escort aircraft carriers
seaplane carriers
amphibious assault shipping
battlecruisers
dreadnought battleships
pre-dreadnought battleships
ironclads
bomb vessels
corvettes and sloops
cruisers
destroyers
fireships
frigates
gun-brigs, gunboats & gunvessels
mine countermeasure vessels
monitors
patrol and attack craft
royal yachts
ships of the line
submarines
support ships
survey vessels
shore establishments
hospitals and hospital ships
air stations
aircraft wings
fleets and major commands
squadrons and flotillas
early English ships • early Scots ships

This is an alphabetical list of all the names of ships that have ever been in service with the Royal Navy, as well as a list of fictional vessels in literature about the Royal Navy. Many of the names have been re-used over the years and thus represent more than one ship.

Altogether over 13,000 ships have been in service with the Royal Navy.[1]

Note that, unlike many other naval services, the Royal Navy designates certain types of shore establishment (e.g. barracks and naval airfields) as 'ships' and names them accordingly. These establishments are often referred to in service slang as stone frigates.

Contents

Lists of ship names

Due to the large number of names the list has been split into smaller lists:

Alphabetical

By types of ship

Fictional

Many novels about the Royal Navy feature fictional ships, but most use real names. This is a list of fictional names of note.

Notes

  1. ^ Colledge and Warlow (2006) Page viii.

References