“Don’t ya think ya ought to rephrase that, Laddie?”
This RN thread may be of interest: Naming of RN Warships? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
In 1934 Cunard built a fabulous new ocean liner. When its completion was reported to King George, the conversation began with Cunard’s intention to name it “in honour of a great queen!”
And George said, “Oh, her Majesty will be so pleased!”
Um… gulp. The great queen in question was George’s grandmother, Victoria, not Mary, his wife. So there was nothing they could do but stuff their feet in their mouths and go back out to name it after Mary instead.
The Queen Mary was a majestic liner, fondly remembered, but she was supposed to have been the Queen Victoria.
The guy who names the ships has one of the best jobs in the world.
The Russian monitor Russalka lies in the exact same fashion. She wasn’t discovered until 2003, and her stern lies within SCUBA diving depths (33m). From what I heard, the reason she was undiscovered for so long is because the wreck resembles a sonar echo when passing overhead, being just a random blip on an otherwise flat seafloor.
Gratuitous nitpick of the day:
The Wikipedia page actually says, “the stern of the lost vessel rises 108 feet (33 meters) above the sea bed.” (emphasis mine)
From the original story in Archeology: “Some 240 feet below me is the muddy seabed, but my target is the tip of a sunken ship’s stern, rising 108 feet from the bottom.”
So, the stern actually rises to about 132 feet (40 meters) below the surface. But that’s still within the reach of a recreational diver, I think.
Oh, good one. Just within reach, but in those waters (pitch black and freezing, no references) I wouldn’t hit 40 without some odd gases in my tubes.
namewise, this is the reverse of the situation with Invincible. In Slavic folklore rusalka is sort of a “nymph” or water spirit (often left after female suicides by drowning) that is believed to try to make swimmers drown. So yeah, maybe it’s a bad idea to call a ship after the goddess of drowning.
Never too late to raise the dead
But there WAS an H.M.S. Queen Victoria, technically.
She was a paddle netlayer launched in 1887 but not in naval service before being taken up on 28 January 1915 and being given a single 3-pdr gun. She was later purchased by the Royal Navy, in August 1915. She was sold on 12 May 1920 and was broken up.
source: Diitmar & Colledge, “British Warships: 1914-1919”
WAG… they just felt that these needed the Queen part in the name…
Obvious for Mary there could be the virgin Mary, Mary Magdelane and a gazillion other famous mary’s…
Now onto Elizabeth, dear old Beth is a bit of a superstitious person, and may not wish to have her name on a war ship. The current HMS Queen Elizabeth is named after Elizabeth 1, and she isn’t alive to complain about that is she. (its currently a ship that has been named and launched, but they are taking a while to get her to service… the hand over to the Navy is just about done, and the Navy is suggesting they might only have her ready for military service in 2020.)
If there’s someone I would expect to know you should never name anything seaworthy “Invincible”, it’s the Brits…
I suspect Queen Victoria was not amused.
Monarch: “A paddle netlayer?”
First Sea Lord: (visibly nervous) “Er, it is a very useful little ship, Your Majesty.”
Nothing will come of this “steam”. It is a ridiculous concept. Britain rules the waves by sail. That is why they are called “sailors”.
Don’t give him his bloody gong, Bertie.
The terror of the Axis Navies. HMS Shakespeare.
You Americans do have the USS Ponce… just saying.
Not warships, but there was a story that George V was discussing with the chairman of Cunard how they were going to name their grand new liner, and the chairman floated the idea of asking permission to name it after “Britain’s greatest Queen”, to which he got the reply “Oh, Her Majesty will be pleased” - which is how we got the Queen Mary.
After six years it’s amazing the echo was still loud enough to hear. 
And you have HMS Cockchafer. Check and mate.
In his “Lost Fleet” series, Jack Campbell using “Invincible” in just that way. They keep building them, but the enemy seems to enjoy destroying them in particular (and other bad luck also occurs).