One of my hobbyhorses, which I have generally tried not to go on about here, is the proper naming of ships. Unfortunately, the recent activities of now-former Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, who used his last few days in office to go on a naming binge, have forced my hand.
Names for USN ships are selected by the Secretary of the Navy,1 but for a long time, the traditional naming scheme was more or less adhered to. Specifically, battleships were to be named after states (a requirement that was only removed in 2023) while cruisers were named for cities, destroyers for naval heroes and carriers after ships from the early American Navy, and later for battles, while submarines were named for fish. This began to break down after WWII, the first obvious breach being the carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt, named after the recently-deceased president.2 This was the beginning of an interleaved set of "great person" names for the carriers, with Forrestal and John F. Kennedy popping up in the 50s and 60s before the naming scheme switched fully with the Nimitz class. At the same time, the submarine scheme began to switch from fish to, first, "Congressional supporters of the Navy's nuclear program" and then to cities, as, according to Admiral Rickover, "fish don't vote". Read more...
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