Talk:Japanese ship naming conventions

Spacecraft
I heard that there are different conventions on the namings of spacecraft.

The Japanese chose animals or plants (Is it related to this article?).

The Europeans famous Europeans (Galileo, Giotto).

The Soviets idealistic concepts (Buran, Energiya, Unity, World/Peace).

The Americans went from Classical Greek Mythology (Project Mercury, Project Gemini, Project Apollo) to Historic Scientific Research Vessels (Columbia, Discovery, Challenger, Atlantis, Endeavour).

When the time came to name the ISS, they couldn't agree and the temporary name stood.

Japanese Warship Naming Rule
In 1905, Yamamoto Gonnohyoe devised the Naming Rule and Meiji Emperor enacted it. Person's name were rejected in 1883 by Meiji Emperor, no warship named after person's name since then.

City of brotherly love?
The statement "For example, Akagi is probably perceived as "red castle" by Japanese about as often as Philadelphia is perceived as the "city of brotherly love" by Americans." lacks context for those not familiar with Philadelphia or how Americans refer to it. Is it often or not often at all? JRR Smith 22:07, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Carrier Naming Conventions
The assertion that carriers *post 1943* were named after mountains using the example of the Akagi isn't correct. The Akagi was sunk in 1942 during the Battle of Midway. Similarly, the Kaga is named after a province but was also sunk in 1942. Arthur 00:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The Akagi was laid down as an Amagi-class battle cruiser, and is therefore in accord with the naming convention which calls for battle cruisers to be named after mountains even though it was later converted into an aircraft carrier. See

The Kaga was laid down as a Tosa-class battleship, and is therefore in accord with the naming convention which calls for battleships to be named after provinces even though it was later converted into an aircraft carrier. See

Similarly, the Shinano was laid down as a Yamato-class battleship and is therefore in accord with battleship naming conventions, even though it was later converted into an aircraft carrier. See

Suggest the item referring to post-1943 aircraft carriers be deleted.

Astro$01 03:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Naming after people
In the introduction, the article currently states, offhandedly:
 * Japanese warships have never been named after people.

But then in the "Early conventions" section:
 * During the early years ships were often donated by the Shogunate or Japanese clans and the original clan names were kept.

Indeed, I was led here from the article on the Date-Maru. But surely clan names, at least in some sense, are names of people? I'm not sure how to fix this. Perhaps the introduction should say "Japanese warships have never been named after specific people", which (I presume, not having any particular knowledge of the subject) would be more accurate. Comments? --Iustinus 19:27, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction with Star Trek-related article
The article on the fictional Star Trek ship Kobayashi Maru gives a different translation for the word Maru than the one given here -- that article claims that maru means "spirit [of]", with Kobayashi Maru thus meaning "spirit of Kobayashi." I suspect that the Japanese ship naming conventions article is correct, but I don't speak Japanese, so I wanted to throw this out there to get an opinion. --Jfruh (talk) 17:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)