I have a new piece of flash fiction out today in Frozen Wavelets that explores ship names and artificially intelligent spaceships, titled “How they Name the Ships.”
The Somsei Republic name their Ships after important historical figures (usually male). The Ucchou Federation gives Ships use-names like any other citizen, and let them select their own personal names. The philosophical alien Kfuul and the brutal Kháos Empire follow their own rules for ship names, as always. Even the repulsive, symbiotic Brakm have a specific way of naming the Ships they have scavenged.
But what names do the Ships take for themselves?
To find out, you’ll have to read “How they Name the Ships,” out now in issue 5 of Frozen Wavelets: https://frozenwavelets.com/issue-5/how-they-name-the-ships-by-stewart-c-baker/ (It’s only 750 words. You might like it!)
What’s the Story about?
On a surface read, the story tackles the tried and true space opera trope of amusing (or odd) ship names, with examples from several human and non-human polities that range from the droll to the disturbing.
A few examples (or formulas) from the piece:
- Nju Confederation Ship (NCS) Stability
- Philosophical concepts, references to obscure texts, and complex word games are popular among the alien Kfuul.
- NCS Hair Bog
- Kháos Empire ships are named for acts of violence, types of deadly sickness, and cats.
- Yet Another Bloody Disagreement, a ship from the anarchic anti-polity The Tumble, which was aptly and abruptly disintegrated by a rival faction while speaking before the Ucchou Federation parliament.
- Ucchou use names for ships tend to involve words of motion and allusions to important events.
Of course, the story is about much more than space opera tropes. Each section in the piece deals with a specific polity and details not only naming patterns, but what (if anything) ships can do if they disagree with or dislike the name they’ve been given.
The last section ponders what the ships themselves do, and how to otherwise get by while living in a society that’s potentially hostile to your own sense of identity — if not your very existence as an independent being who can make your own choices.
And that’s what the story is really about under the surface level levity: identity, the power names have, and how to stay true to yourself when the society you live in won’t accept who you are.
Ship Names and Space Opera
Anyone who reads space opera will immediately think of a few authors whose space opera settings play with the idea of ship names. Indeed, there’s a whole Wikipedia page that just lists fictional spacecraft.
Alas, though! That page is woefully deficient in my own view, as it contains not a single ship from Iain M. Banks’s Culture series of books — apparently due to an admin deciding it was “fan cruft,” if this Reddit page is accurate.
Banks’s work was formative of how I approach reading and writing space opera, and Culture ships (listed here) are definitely the go-to for clever, ironic, or surreal ship names, to the point where space-related things in real life are now named after them.
The Wiki page also lacks ships from works by newer authors who are just as brilliant as Banks, and also play with the trope, like Aliette de Bodard in her Xuya Universe stories and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor in their Sunlords of the Principality stories.
So, with that in mind, here is a short list of my own personal favourite ship names from other authors’ work, and the stories they appear in.
My Favourite Space Opera Ship Names
- Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn – From the story of the same name by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor. Features poetry, a child refugee, defiance of protocol, tragedy, and hope (2017, Lightspeed)
- The Wild Orchid in Sunless Woods – From Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard. Poetry (yes, I know), found family, criminal hijinx. Awkward human-Ship romance that everyone but the participants can see is obviously there. What’s not to love? (2020, Subterannean Books)
- Size Isn’t Everything – From Iain M. Banks’s Use of Weapons. And yes, the ship in question is quite large…
- Of Course I Still Love You, also from Banks, this time from Player of Games. Notable particularly because SpaceX has a drone ship named after it in real life.
- Starbug – The name of the shuttle in British SF sitcom Red Dwarf. Known for being uh… less than reliable.
- Justice of Toren – The starship now known as Breq, the protagonist of Ann Leckie’s fantastic Ancillary Justice and its sequels.
- Heart of Gold – The “sleekest, most advanced, coolest spaceship in the galaxy” in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. (Stolen by that ne’er-do-well Zaphod Beeblebrox.)
“How They Name the Ships”
Thinking about these and other ship names from space opera definitely played a part in how and why I wrote “How They Name the Ships.”
I don’t know if I can add to the conversation about ship names, what they mean, and why they’re so popular in space opera with such a small story, but it was a fun one to write, all the same. And I hope, if you read it, that it brings you something — whether that’s a moment of levity or something deeper and more lasting.
Again, you can read “How they Name the Ships” in issue 5 of Frozen Wavelets, out now: https://frozenwavelets.com/issue-5/how-they-name-the-ships-by-stewart-c-baker/