# Ships named after Fictional Originals **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266 "2019-03-17T15:59:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/21 "2019-03-18T05:49:50Z")
Horatio Hornblower’s HMS Indefatigable was named for a real ship, apparently (1784-1816), and at least six subsequent ships shared its name, most of them prior to CS Forester’s writing career. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/22 "2019-03-18T11:47:24Z")
A lot of these appear to be cases of simply re-using a ship’s name, rather than actually consciously naming the ship after the fictional original. I’m sure all the _Argo_s are invoking the mythological original ship, but I doubt that most of the others cited – the _Indefatigable_, for instance, share that motivation. At the same time, I admit that it’s hard to show motivation. But it’s pretty clear to me that the _Nautilus_es that went under the Pole were conscious, as well as the Elon Musk ships **gaffa** named are. If someone ever names an actual spacecraft the _Heart of Gold_ or the _City of Chillocothe_, that’ll likely be another case. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/23 "2019-03-18T12:20:53Z")
I hadn’t realized that Virgin Atlantic had its own VSS _Enterprise_. You could always argue that its name owes nothing to Captain Kirk’s starship, but with that double nacelle design you wouldn’t have an easy time convincing me > **[USS Enterprise Evolution in Photos: The Many Faces of Star Trek's Favorite...](https://www.space.com/21000-star-trek-enterprise-starship-evolution.html)** > > See photos and images of the USS Enterprise, the iconic 'Star Trek' starship and its legacy in space and at sea. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/24 "2019-03-18T13:07:33Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Elon Musk named the two autonomous barges the first stage of SpaceX rockets land upon _Just Read The Instructions_ and _Of Course I Still Love You_ after ships in Iain M. Banks’ book _The Player of Games_. _A Shortfall of Gravitas_, the third one, is under construction. Also from SpaceX: The Falcon 9 booster was named for the Millennium Falcon. The Dragon spacecraft is named for Puff the Magic Dragon. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/25 "2019-03-18T15:58:55Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > _A Shortfall of Gravitas_, the third one, is under construction. > > Also from SpaceX: The Falcon 9 booster was named for the Millennium Falcon. It also allowed him to name the upcoming heavy lift vehicle the “Big Falcon Rocket” - which I think was the point. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/26 "2019-03-18T16:35:20Z")
Charon was the mythological Greek deity who ferried the dead across the river Styx. HMS Charon has been used by the Royal Navy four times. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/27 "2019-03-18T16:38:48Z")
[The SpaceX rule:](https://www.space.com/15879-spacex-dragon-spaceship-cool-names.html) “Names must be cool.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/28 "2019-03-18T16:53:42Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Charon was the mythological Greek deity who ferried the dead across the river Styx. > > HMS Charon has been used by the Royal Navy four times. a nice mythological tie-in, but there was no original ship Charon for the Royal Navy ships to be named after. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/29 "2019-03-18T17:02:42Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [The SpaceX rule:](https://www.space.com/15879-spacex-dragon-spaceship-cool-names.html) “Names must be cool.” Long before there was SpaceX, the German Rocket Society was naming its rocket parts after the ones in Kurd Lasswitz’\* early science fiction novel _Zwei Planete_ (Two Planets), a novel about a very unequal war between the technologically advanced Martians and Earthmen. It came out the same year as Wells’ _war of the Worlds_. > **[Verein für Raumschiffahrt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verein_f%C3%BCr_Raumschiffahrt)** > > Winkler, Johannes (President) > Ley, Willy (Vice President) > Braun, Wernher von > Hohmann, Walter > Oberth, Hermann > Riedel, Klaus > The Verein für Raumschiffahrt ("VfR", English: Society for Space Travel) was a German amateur rocket association prior to World War II that included members outside Germany. The first successful VfR test firing with liquid fuel (five minutes) was conducted by Max Valier at the Heylandt Works on January 25, 1930; and additional rocket experiments were conducted at a farm nea... \*As a science fiction pioneer contemporary with Verne and Wells, Lasswitz deserves to be better known. But his novel _Auf Zwei Planete_ has never even been fully translated, and only had one hardcover and one paperback publication. Willy Ley - a member of that German Rocket Society and a science popularize, translated three of his stories in the 1950s for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but only one of those got reprinted later. Another of his stories got translated in 2008, but his stuff is pretty well unknown to Americans. But it is one of the chief inspirations for the German gang that ultimately worked under von Braun. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/30 "2019-03-18T17:42:37Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Charon was the mythological Greek deity who ferried the dead across the river Styx. > > HMS Charon has been used by the Royal Navy four times. I bet serving on a ship ferrying the dead to Hades was a plum assignment. :eek: Likewise on the jolly ships named _Erebus, Terror, Tantalus,_ and _Cerberus._ ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/31 "2019-03-18T18:46:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [The SpaceX rule:](https://www.space.com/15879-spacex-dragon-spaceship-cool-names.html) “Names must be cool.” I really thought their next autonomous barge would be named either _The Check Is In The Mail_ or _I Promise I Won’t Come In Your Mouth_. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/32 "2019-03-19T08:06:40Z")
Driving to work this morning there was a vehicle with a motorboat on a trailer stopped near me at the lights The boat was called the ‘Good Ship Venus’. I’m assuming the original in the poem was fictional. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/33 "2019-03-19T12:03:37Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > Driving to work this morning there was a vehicle with a motorboat on a trailer stopped near me at the lights The boat was called the ‘Good Ship Venus’. I’m assuming the original in the poem was fictional. I’m sure you’re right. And I’m also sure that there’s a vast number of small, personal craft that fit the OP’s requirements – you wouldn’t name an ocean liner “The Flying Dutchman”, but some guy will probably name his weekend motorboat that. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/34 "2019-03-19T12:44:02Z")
I suppose I should mention the SS Titan, the fictional title ship in the 1898 novella _[Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan)_. In the novella, the Titan struck an iceberg and sank with much loss of life. The vital statistics of the Titan, including the number of lifeboats (“as few as the law allowed”), are strikingly similar to another ship you may have heard of, which sunk in 1912… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/35 "2019-03-19T12:57:17Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I suppose I should mention the SS Titan, the fictional title ship in the 1898 novella _[Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan)_. In the novella, the Titan struck an iceberg and sank with much loss of life. The vital statistics of the Titan, including the number of lifeboats (“as few as the law allowed”), are strikingly similar to another ship you may have heard of, which sunk in 1912… Yeah, but it seems unlikely that they named the _Titanic_ after that fictional ship. (“Gentlemen, I’m so sure that this ship is unsinkable that I’m going to name it after a fictional boat resembling it that sank disastrously, thereby tempting fate.” “And then, since I’m so certain that my matter-transmitter will work perfectly, I will get into this transmission booth with a fly.”) ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/36 "2019-03-19T17:17:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > a nice mythological tie-in, but there was no original ship Charon for the Royal Navy ships to be named after. Wasn’t Charon pretty much indistinguishable from his boat? I can’t recall any myths or stories where he’s doing anything but ferrying the dead and occasionally the living, or refusing to because of no coin in the mouth. Also, I don’t believe his boat had a name. It was always Charon’s boat or Charon’s ferry. Another not-quite one is Captain Hook’s ship, the Sea Devil. Both the Royal Navy and the US Navy had warships named Sea Devil. Of course that’s also the name of a manta ray species. But especially for the Royal Navy, it’s likely the namers were aware of the former fictional use. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/37 "2019-03-19T17:36:24Z")
The _“HMS” Surprise_ is a real ship named after a fictional ship which was based on a real ship. Does that count? There was a series of real _HMS Surprise_s in the British Navy, including one around 1800. That actual one was used as the basis for the fictional _HMS Surprise_ in Patrick O’Brians Aubrey-Maturin series. When the move Master and Commander was made, they filmed it using an existing actual ship the _Rose_ (itself a replica of an 18th century _HMS Rose_). Later the _Rose_ was formally re-named ‘HMS Surprise’ (despite it not actually being a British Navy ship). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/38 "2019-03-19T18:25:01Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Wasn’t Charon pretty much indistinguishable from his boat? I can’t recall any myths or stories where he’s doing anything but ferrying the dead and occasionally the living, or refusing to because of no coin in the mouth. Also, I don’t believe his boat had a name. It was always Charon’s boat or Charon’s ferry. That’s stretching it. “Charon’s Boat” is not equivalent to “Charon” by itself > [@](#): > > Another not-quite one is Captain Hook’s ship, the Sea Devil. Both the Royal Navy and the US Navy had warships named Sea Devil. Of course that’s also the name of a manta ray species. But especially for the Royal Navy, it’s likely the namers were aware of the former fictional use. Captain Hook’s ship was the **Jolly Roger** in Barrie. Disney used this, too, in its adaptations. It’s only in the Dave Barry/Ridley Pearson books that it’s the “Sea Devil”, and I’ll bet that post-dates most of those ships. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/39 "2019-03-19T18:32:08Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Elon Musk named the two autonomous barges the first stage of SpaceX rockets land upon _Just Read The Instructions_ and _Of Course I Still Love You_ after ships in Iain M. Banks’ book _The Player of Games_. [This guy’s sub](https://www.popsci.com/victor-vescovo-five-deeps-submarine)is named after the GOU _Limiting Factor_ from “Player of Games”. Proof: [FAQ | Five Deeps Expedition](https://fivedeeps.com/faq/) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266/40 "2019-03-19T18:49:05Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > …there are a lot of examples of ships named ‘Discovery’ - including, I believe, James Cook’s ship - but it wasn’t that long after 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke wrote that the ship in the movie was named after this particular ship, which he had admired and sometimes eaten lunch aboard: [RRS Discovery - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RRS_Discovery#Discovery_Point,_Dundee) > [@CalMeacham](#): > > …If someone ever names an actual spacecraft the _Heart of Gold_ or the _City of Chillocothe_, that’ll likely be another case. I get the _Hitchhiker’s_ reference, but not the second one (and did you mean “Chillicothe”?): [USS Chillicothe - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Chillicothe_(1862)) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ships-named-after-fictional-originals/831266.md?page=3)