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star trek - Who names starship classes?


In Star Trek, there are a lot of different starship classes (The Constitution, Daedalus, Galaxy, Intrepid, New Orleans, etc to name but a few).


My question: Is there any reference to who/what process is involved in assigning the names to these Starship classes (note: NOT the name of the starship itself, but the class)?



Answer



It's pretty clear that, as in the real world, Starfleet vessel classes are named after an eponymous first vessel.


This Wiki article gives a solid list of classes as well as their namesake vessel (and usually the episode in which that vessel appears). Certain ships such as the NX-01 Enterprise seem to break this convention but where this happens, it's usually because of an in-universe refit.


In-universe (at least within the trek books) the 'naming privilege' seems to go to the dockyard and the designer, presumably with plenty of input (e.g. meddling) from politicians and the usual me-too dignitaries. In the book "Final Frontier" it's the ship's shakedown captain who is given the honour of naming the vessel in return for past favours. He eventually chooses the name 'Enterprise' (phew!)


Out-of-universe, many of the ships were named after famous vessels, cast and crew hometowns and various in-jokes. There's quite a long list of speculation here about the names chosen.


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