Seriously, I mean, read the list and weep for poor Cuttlefish, Plunger, Tuna, Gudgeon, Bonefish, Whale, Flounder, Flasher (really), Hoe (no, really), Blower (seriously, Navy, wtf), and Cochino (a kind of triggerfish, but also Spanish for "pig").

I mean, being named after cities (cruisers) and states (battleships) isn't much better, and one suspects USS Massachusetts gets tired of being called "Mamie" (presumably nobody in the fleet is stupid enough to make it Big Mamie to her face, although, you never know, Grampus isn't the brightest sub in the pen), but still. At least back then the US Navy had not yet embarked fully on its ambitious and rather risible project of naming its ships after men by their full names. USS John C. Stennis would probably not be amused.

(There was also no USS City of Corpus Christi back then; that charming bit of naval naming had to wait for the nuclear submarine era.)

Then again, probably a number of the Japanese ships' names are a bit comical to native speakers of that language. Their heavy cruisers and battleships tended to be named after mountains, so from a cultural standpoint, what we Westerners take for a vaguely mellifluous foreign name (e.g., Takao) is probably equivalent to calling a woman Kilauea or Sugarloaf.

--G.
which would be a terrible pet name
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.