A while ago, I made a comment about how there were so few Starfleet ships named in alien
languages, considering the Federation is such a multispecies organisation. Well, that sounds
like a video topic to me, so here it is. Hi, Ric here and before we start, I’ll just
throw out a couple of clarifications, I have included several apocryphal ships (and will
mention them as such), but there are far more out there than I can reasonably include. I’m
also only looking at ships that are exclusively Starfleet starships as of course most planet’s
native populous name their vessels in their own tongue. That all said, let’s get started
with Earth’s closest allies, the Vulcans. There is the USS T’Kumbra NCC-62100 which
is a Nebula class vessel that had an all-Vulcan crew. Such one-species crews were fairly common
in the Federation, mostly for life support requirements. The T’Kumbra was captained
by Sodok in 2374. According to the Destiny timeline of books, which is not canon, the
ship was destroyed in 2381 in the Borg battle of the Azure Nebula. An alternate story has
the ship still in operation in 2410 as part of Starfleet’s Omega Force, which was made
as an anti-Borg taskforce. The name is presumably of Vulcan origin, considering its close ties
to the founding species and its close following of their naming convention.
In the vein of Vulcan, ve have the USS T’Plana-Hath NCC-1004. This ship was a Engle class vessel
present during the battle of the Binary Stars in 2256 where it did not survive the conflict.
This vessel is of course, named after the first contact ship encountered by Zephram
Cochrane in 2063. This older ship was a 2053 era Vulcan survey vessel, itself named after
a famous Vulcan T’Plana Hath who was Surak’s mentor before the time of Awakening. There
are also mentions of an unknown vessel with this name in operation during the 24th century,
and because of the prominence of the name in Vulcan culture, I suspect there were many
more that escaped the limelight. Naturally, we have the most famous (in-universe)
Vulcan’s name being used in ships too. The USS Surak with apocraphyl mentions of both
a constitution-refit and, oh dear, and Oberth. The Oberth vanished in 2285. Don’t look
for it, it probably blew up. We also have the USS ShiKahr NCC-31905, named
after the capital city of Vulcan which was a Miranda class, however it was destroyed
in the first battle of Chin’toka against Cardassian forces. There is a mention in Star
Trek Online of a ShiKahr class vessel, which looks like a modernised version of the Miranda
class. The USS Sitak NCC-32591 was another ill-fated
Miranda class that was destroyed in the final days of the Dominion War during Operation
Return. Now, Sitak is actually a name in several earth cultures so it may not belong on this
list, however there is a Vulcan admiral with the same name, so presumably Sitak is also
a Vulcan name. With so many languages out there, in real life, let alone the fiction
of an entire galaxy’s worth, some sounds around bound to match up sooner or later.
On name we can definatly attribute to Vulcan, is the USS Sarek, the excelsior class named
after the superb ambassador that was still active into the 2370, taking part in operation
return. The ship, not the Vulcan. Sticking to the names present in the founding
species of the Federation, we have the USS Shran NCC-1413 which was a Magee class vessel.
This was one of the many casualties of the Battle of the Binary stars, but for its brief
time in the… background it was confirmed to be named after Thy’lek Shran of the Andorian
Imperial guard. Seems only fair that Starfleet would honour his name as he was a major supporter
of the Federation, even before it formed, being a close friend of Captain Archer.
The USS Gorkon NCC-40512 was an excelsior class, which naturally meant it became the
flagship for an admiral, in this case, Nechayev. It was her mobile command base for the first
anti-Borg taskforce, but continued to serve as base of operations for various other missions
well into the late 2370s. She chose the vessel as far back as 2366 as part of the 12th fleet,
as she had captained it before that. This ship was named after the famous Klingon Chancellor,
who spent a great effort to ensure the Khitomer Accords were signed between the Empire and
Federation in 2293, even though it cost him his life. Nice to see Starfleet honour his
legacy, not just Klingons who also named a vessel after this chancellor.
Likewise and for similar reasoning, there are a couple of mentions of a USS Khitomer,
one a nebula class, and the other a Noble class.
The Runabouts in Deep Space nine were all named after rivers, but one, the USS Yolja
NCC-75353 was named after a Bajoran river and seen in novels set around 2376 onwards.
By the 32nd century, there are fewer Federation ships, but one of their number is the USS
Nog NCC-325070, an Eisenberg-class starship. This futuristic design is named after the
most famous Ferengi in Starfleet history and the first to join their ranks, Captain Nog,
and I don’t care what you say, he made the rank of Captain to me. Nevertheless, history
remembers his status within Starfleet and even 817 years after he joined.
There are several others that I could not discern an origin for, but they may simply
be a language I can’t identify so I’ll drop a list here to see if anyone else has
any ideas. USS Da-Teplan? USS D’hjty? USS G’Mat? USS Min’ow.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, many of these vessels with alien names are drawn from the
proper nouns of people and places of relevance to the in-universe lore, and in fact, take
most prominent alien names from Star Trek canon, stick a USS in front of them and you’ll
probably find a memory beta page listing their appearances. You can attribute the lack of
alien named vessels with either in universe or real reasoning. Reality is probably because
the names are easier to remember, can be familiar references and because it’s a show ultimately
about the future of humans. In-universe, you can say that we just don’t see them, or
that Starfleet is a predominantly human organisation, which also appears to be true. Not to mention
that Starfleet’s main shipyards, Utopia Planetia are… or were, in the Sol system.
So these were the ones that I could find, there are probably more out there, such as
a USS Spock, I mean there has to be, right? Give me a character that you’d name a vessel
after, mine would be the USS Phlox, I think, to give Denobula some love. Thanks again for
watching and I’ll see you next time. I’ve been Ric, so long and goodbye!