Which aircraft manufacturer had the best naming scheme?

[Thorlifter]

I agree GG. The Japanese names always sound so majestic. I mean, Seiran - "Mist on a Fair Day"!!! Come on, how do you get better than that!

 

[GrauGeist]

I agree GG. The Japanese names always sound so majestic. I mean, Seiran - "Mist on a Fair Day"!!! Come on, how do you get better than that!

I don't know, Thor..."Violet Lightning" or "Demon Queller" has to be at the top of the list for badassery, to be honest!

 

[parsifal]

The name "wildcat" always makes me think of some gay party goer in the seedy district of town....""wild" "cat".

 

[pbehn]

The Japanese names are obviously translations to English of things which evoke something in the Japanese psyche. Chrysanthemum was he symbol of the empire and cherry blossom is an important part of Japanese (and Chinese) culture

 

[nuuumannn]

True but to change wildcat to Martlet?

Royal Navy aircraft were often named after seabirds, as were its shore stations, although the Grumman Avenger was originally named Tarpon (a type of fish; torpedo bomber reference 'tin fish', and in common with Albacore, Swordfish and Barracuda attack aircraft) but the name Avenger stuck and entered common use (wonder why...)

Rolls-Royce named its piston engines after birds-of-prey; Eagle, Kestrel, Buzzard, etc, and its gas turbines after rivers in the British Isles, although the RB.211 River will never be found on any Ordnance Survey map.

Armstrong Siddeley named its piston engines after cats, e.g. Tiger, Cheetah etc and its gas turbines after snakes; Viper, Mamba etc, except for the Sapphire, whose origins are betrayed by its name, coming from a design by Metropolitan Vickers, which named its engines after precious stones, e.g. Beryl.

Bristol named its engines after Classic mythological figures, Perseus, Hercules, Olympus. Napier named its piston engines after swords and its turbines after deer or grazers if the Nomad is to be counted; Eland, Gazelle.

De Havilland prefixed its piston engines with Gipsy (with an 'I', not a 'Y' as in Gypsy) and its reaction engines (jet and rocket) after fantastic creatures, e.g. Goblin, Ghost, Sprite. The Moth thing came from GdeH himself, who was a keen lepidopterist.

Blackburn Blackburn

A slight variation on the theme was the Blackburn Blackburd, so named by changing the 'n' to a 'd'; very imaginative also. Bristol got a bit lazy at times, e.g. 'Fighter' and 'Freighter'

Truly odd British aircraft names; Boulton Paul Bobolink, Reid and Sigrist Snargasher, Vickers Viastra, Tarrant Tabor.

I think the structure of British naming makes sense and is simple, compared to other countries. Make, model and variant, for example Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I, followed by Supermarine Spitfire Mk.II. Simple. Americans tend to muddy things by throwing seemingly incongruous (yes, I know they had meaning, before anyone gets snippy) letters and numbers about, such as the navy system of "Grumman NHDFGT786547NBGHHY Blahdeblah", with names given usually by Brits anyway e.g. Liberator, Mustang. Doesn't Catalina Mk.I run off the tongue a little easier than PBY-5a?

The German names, or designations made sense, but were rather clinical, e.g. Fw 190, surely Wurger or Butcher Bird is far more evocative? The Russians don't really appear to name things at all, except for nicknames and its rather ironic that the ASCC reporting names during the Cold War are used by the Russians themselves to describe their own aircraft, e.g Hind, Foxbat, Bear and Backfire have come into use (unofficially) to describe these aircraft. Just thinkin' out loud.

 

[wuzak]

Royal Navy aircraft were often named after seabirds, as were its shore stations, although the Grumman Avenger was originally named Tarpon (a type of fish; torpedo bomber reference 'tin fish', and in common with Albacore, Swordfish and Barracuda attack aircraft) but the name Avenger stuck and entered common use (wonder why...)

Rolls-Royce named its piston engines after birds-of-prey; Eagle, Kestrel, Buzzard, etc, and its gas turbines after rivers in the British Isles, although the RB.211 River will never be found on any Ordnance Survey map.

Armstrong Siddeley named its piston engines after cats, e.g. Tiger, Cheetah etc and its gas turbines after snakes; Viper, Mamba etc, except for the Sapphire, whose origins are betrayed by its name, coming from a design by Metropolitan Vickers, which named its engines after precious stones, e.g. Beryl.

Bristol named its engines after Classic mythological figures, Perseus, Hercules, Olympus. Napier named its piston engines after swords and its turbines after deer or grazers if the Nomad is to be counted; Eland, Gazelle.

De Havilland prefixed its piston engines with Gipsy (with an 'I', not a 'Y' as in Gypsy) and its reaction engines (jet and rocket) after fantastic creatures, e.g. Goblin, Ghost, Sprite. The Moth thing came from GdeH himself, who was a keen lepidopterist.



A slight variation on the theme was the Blackburn Blackburd, so named by changing the 'n' to a 'd'; very imaginative also. Bristol got a bit lazy at times, e.g. 'Fighter' and 'Freighter'

Truly odd British aircraft names; Boulton Paul Bobolink, Reid and Sigrist Snargasher, Vickers Viastra

To add to that.

Rolls-Royce were going to name their air cooled engines after mountain ranges. eg Pennine.
Rolls-Royce were going to name their 2 stroke engine after famous battles. eg Crecy.

Armstrong Siddeley changed to using dog names later on - Deerhound, Wolfhound, Boarhound (the latter two projects never completed, the former ran only in prototype form). They also used Hyena and Mongoose - not strictly cats.

 

[nuuumannn]

Alright then, Mr Pedantic Pants; there are always exceptions to the rules, but generically speaking...

 

[swampyankee]

iirc, the British Air Ministry preferred alliterative names, and gave some generic standards for their naming conventions. The US Depts of Army and Navy did not, insofar as I know, even thought of naming their aircraft, preferring rather complex alphanumeric designation schemata.

Insofar as I know, Douglas, Boeing, Martin, and Sikorsky did not name their commercial aircraft; I don't think Japan, France, Germany, Italy, or the USSR named their military or commercial (well, in the case of the USSR, quasi-commercial) aircraft. It seemed naming aircraft was pretty much a UK/Commonwealth thing and also something done by Lockheed and Grumman.

 

[GrauGeist]

...I don't think Japan, France, Germany, Italy, or the USSR named their military or commercial (well, in the case of the USSR, quasi-commercial) aircraft. It seemed naming aircraft was pretty much a UK/Commonwealth thing and also something done by Lockheed and Grumman.

See post #39

 

[swampyankee]

GrauGeist,

Thank you. I stand corrected.

 

[pinehilljoe]

Spitfire, the U.K. QED

 

[Milosh]

Japanese naming of airplanes

Popular Names
Fighters - Meteorological phenomena
Carrier Fighters - Wind names ending in pu or fu
Seaplane Fighters - same as Carrier Fighters
Interceptor Fighters - Lightning names ending in den
Night Fighters - Light names ending in ko
Attack planes - Mountain names
Bombers Star - (sei) or constellation (zan) names
Patrol planes - Sea or ocean names
Reconnaissance planes - Cloud names
Trainers - Tree, plant or flower names
Transports - Sky names
Miscellaneous - Named for landscape effects

 

[vikingBerserker]

That's why I liked the old way the US named ships, you could always figure out what the larger ships were just based on the names

 

[parsifal]

That's why I liked the old way the US named ships, you could always figure out what the larger ships were just based on the names

Not sure about that. What is the correlation of USS WASP and USS ENTERPRISE. There is no differentiation between CA and CLs, yet DDs and Des do have differentiation. Ships smaller than a DE are a veritable dogs breakfast as far as naming is concerned.

To be fair, USN displayed excellent consistency when it came to pennant number sequencing. Their numbering system was and is logical and easy to follow.

By contrast RN naming was slightly more consistent, but their pennant numbers followed no logic at all , in my opinion.

 

[pinehilljoe]

Not sure about that. What is the correlation of USS WASP and USS ENTERPRISE.

.

Wasp and Enterprise were names of historical fighting ships back to the age of Sail. The Lexington Class BCs were named after famous old ships and battles (Lexington, Saratoga ((battles)) Constellation, Constitution, Ranger, United States ((famous sailing ships))). This naming scheme was kept for the Carriers: Battles and old historical Warships. The scheme was consistent until the Franklin, FDR and Forestall. The JFK seemed to set the pattern for Presidents. The Nimitz class had Nimitz and Eisenhower, and Carl Vinson (Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, it is said Carl Vinson built more ships than anyone in history, USS Vinson also set a precedent for the first ship named after a living US person). Naming now seems to have settled on former Presidents, though CVN-80 will be named Enterprise. There was strong public opinion, petitions to Congress and thankfully the name Enterprise was selected and announced when CVN-65 was decommissioned.

Naming of other types of ships was fairly consistent during the War:
BB: States, except Kearsarge
CA, CL, CLAA, Cities
DD/DE Named after notable people
Submarines: fish
CB: US Territories

Destroyers and Crusiers mixed post war when some of the large DDGs were reclassified as cruisers.

Now it seems each new Class of ships has its own naming scheme, tradition thrown to the wind.

Wikipedia has a good list that does not need to be repeated
United States ship naming conventions - Wikipedia

 

[GrauGeist]

BB-5 Kearsarge was named after the famous U.S. Navy sloop that's best known for it's battle with the CSS Alabama of the coast of France, near Cherbourg.

Regarding the "traditional" carrier names of historic battles or warships, this was started by the Lexington class Battlecruisers ordered in 1916. The program was halted by the Washington Naval Treaty (1922) and instead of scrapping the two nearest completion, they were converted to Carriers: CC-1 Lexington became CV-2 Lexington and CC-3 Saratoga became CV-3 Saratoga. The 4 other CCs under construction were scrapped (CC-2 Constellation, CC-4 Ranger, CC-5 Constitution and CC-6 United States)

The exception to that tradition was of course, the first U.S. carrier: USS Langley which was named after Samuel Langley. The other two non-traditional carrier names would be the USS Sable and USS Wolverine - both used for training in the great lakes.