Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)

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This article describes Wikipedia's conventions for naming articles about ships and for referring to ships in the body of articles. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions for more general naming conventions. See WikiProject Ships for more guidance on writing articles about ships.

Contents

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Article title

Ships share names with people, places, animals and other things. So articles about ships must be named to distinguish them from the things they are named after.

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Civilian ships

Civilian ships should follow standard Wikipedia naming conventions. In particular:

If a ship is best known in combination with a ship prefix, use the prefix as part of the name:

If more than one prefix was used, choose the best-known and create a redirect from the other:

A ship not known by a prefix should appear under its name only, if that is unambiguous:

But when the name is ambiguous, append disambiguation information in parentheses as usual. The date of launching can be used if there are several ships with the same name:

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Military ships

For ships of navies that have standard ship prefixes, use the prefix in the name of the article:

Treat the prefixes as acronyms rather than abbreviations, and don't use periods after each letter:

Don't use the hull classification symbol as a prefix:

For ships of navies or nations that don't have a standard ship prefix, name the article (Nationality) (type) (Name):

Don't be over-specific about the ship type:

Don't make up a ship prefix for a navy that didn't use one. Thus:

Some authors use invented prefixes for consistency with "USS", "HMS" etc. It's not a mistake to do that, but at Wikipedia we choose not to. To forestall attempts to move articles to the wrong place, you might want to add redirects from popular invented ship prefixes. So the article Japanese battleship Yamato could have redirects from IJN Yamato and HIJMS Yamato.

However, it's common practice to backdate the use of a prefix so that it applies to ships of that navy that historically would not have been referred to with that prefix, and Wikipedia follows this practice:

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.

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Ships with hull number only

Many types of ship, such as American PT boats and German U-boats, are officially known only by a hull number. In these cases, it can be best to spell out the ship type (e.g. Unterseeboot 238), but be sure the ship type name is correct. In many cases, the designation is not a direct acronym and does not relate directly to a ship's class or even type. For the main article, create a redirect or a disambiguation page at the short form. For example, PT-109 can be a redirect to Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109, but U-238 must be a disambiguation page (because of its alternative meaning of Uranium 238).

Articles about vessels with a pennant number but no name should be titled like HMS A1, HMS E11, HMS M1 etc.

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Disambiguating ships with the same name

It is extremely common for many ships to share a name. Therefore disambiguation needs special attention.

Use ships' hull numbers (hull classification symbols for the United States Navy, and pennant numbers for the Royal Navy and many European and Commonwealth navies) for disambiguation, if available:

Write USN hull numbers with a hyphen (the USN itself is not consistent in this respect). Write pennant numbers with neither hyphen nor space (this matches the number as it typically appears on the side of the ship). Note that not all pennant numbers have an initial letter ("flag superior"), for example HMS Ark Royal (91). Also note that in recent decades the Australian and Canadian navies have moved towards American-style three letter pennant number prefixes, these should be written with a space, for example HMCS Vancouver (FFH 331).

In a few cases, one ship is so much better-known than her namesakes that she need not be disambiguated:

If a ship had several hull numbers in her career, use the most well-known (but give all her hull numbers in the lead section, and make redirects from the others):

If none of several hull numbers is clearly the most well-known, use the first:

If an entire class of ships was reclassified, be consistent and make the deicision once for all the ships of the class:

  • The Knox-class frigates are named with the FF (frigate) classification, not DE (destroyer escort). (Justification: known as frigates for the majority of their service.)
  • The Castle-class corvettes are named with pennant numbers starting K, not F. (Justification: best known for service during World War II.)

If no hull number is available, use the ship's year of launching if known — like human birthdays, every ship has one — otherwise some other appropriate initial date, such as commissioning, or the date she is first mentioned in the historical record:

It should be noted that European navies reuse pennant numbers, so ships of the same name may have the same pennant numbers; the second and third Sir Galahad, for example. So you may need to use the launch date to disambiguate these.

If there's only one article for a given ship name, you should still pre-emptively disambiguate it, creating a redirect from the plain name:

This means that when a second article is written about another ship with that name (and so the plain name becomes a disambiguation page), you don't have to go round fixing all the links. It also means that you don't have to check each time you link to a ship whether or not to disambiguate.

Make an index page that lists all the ships with a name in a navy:

For well known names that are shared between navies, or between military and civilian ships, also disambiguate at the usual Wikipedia disambiguation page for the name:

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Referring to ships

Put the ship name in italics, but not the prefix or hull number:

  • USS Nimitz (not "USS Nimitz" or "USS Nimitz")

"The" is not needed before the name of a ship (but neither is it wrong):

You may give the ship prefix the first time you introduce the ship, but you should not repeat it on future mentions. You need not give the prefix at all if it is obvious from the context (for example, in a list of ships of the Royal Navy there is no need to repeat "HMS" each time).

Make a link from the first mention of each ship in an article, even if Wikipedia does not yet have an article about that ship. If you don't know how to disambiguate it, link to the index page for its name: this will allow the link to be found and fixed later.

Don't give the hull number or other disambiguation information unless it's immediately relevant. Someone who needs to know can follow the link:

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Ships that changed name or nationality

An article about a ship that changed name or nationality should be placed at the most well known name, with a redirect from the other name:

But if the ship had significant careers in two navies, it may be best to create two articles with one ending at the transfer and the other beginning then, depending on how long the articles are and how extensive the transformation of the ship.

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Ship classes

Articles about a ship class should be named (Lead ship name) "class" (type); for example, Ohio class submarine. Do not be overly specific in the type; for example, use "aircraft carrier", not "light escort fleet assault carrier". Use the singular form of the ship type; for example, "submarine", not "submarines".

Uses of the class as a noun are not hyphenated, while adjectival references are hyphenated, as in Ohio-class submarine: if in doubt, do not hyphenate. Note the separation of submarine as a separate link; this is not required, but does allow the reader to look up the general term directly instead of being plunged into the technical discussion of a ship class.

When the class is named after its lead ship, italicise the name of that ship, for example the Lion-class battlecruisers are named after HMS Lion. But when the class is named after something its members share in common, don't italicise the name, for example the Battle-class destroyers are named after battles: there is no HMS Battle (or at least none in that class).

Ship classes may need to be disambiguated:

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