List of U.S. military vessels named after living Americans
USN watercraft christened after people not dead by commissioning From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The naming of United States Navy vessels after living people was common in the earliest years of American history, but as the 20th century began, the Navy had firmly established a practice of naming ships for people only after they had died.[1] In 1969, a Navy panel formally decreed that warships would no longer be named after living persons.[1]
Former president George H. W. Bush views a model of USSGeorge H.W. Bush(CVN-77), the aircraft carrier named after him.
That lasted until 1974, when President Richard Nixon announced the naming of an aircraft carrier after United States RepresentativeCarl Vinson.[1] Over the next half-century, the Navy named more ships for living people than it had in the previous two centuries. From October 2020 to March 2023, the Navy named a ship for a living person every eight months, a pace unseen since 1776.
U.S. Navy ships are named by the Secretary of the Navy under U.S. law, explicitly until 1925 and implicitly since.[2]
No ships were named for living former Navy secretaries until 2001; since then, every Navy secretary save one has named a warship for a living predecessor, accounting for more than one-quarter of the ships they named for living people.[3]
No one has named more U.S. ships for living people than Ray Mabus, who did so eight times during his service as secretary from 2009 to 2017. "I think it's...important, when we can, to honor people who are still with us and thank them for what they did," Mabus said in 2016.[4]
The U.S. Navy generally announces the name of a ship some time before it is launched, and well before it is accepted for purchase and commissioned into active service.
The following ships received their names while their namesakes were alive. The list includes several ships whose namesakes died before the ships were commissioned.
1770s
George Washington
George Washington had several vessels named after him before he died in 1799, including at least four in the 1770s and one in 1798. (See also USSWashington).
USSMustin(DDG-89) was named on December 15, 2001, in honor of the Mustin family that devoted more than a century to U.S. Naval service. Vice Admiral Henry C. Mustin died in April 2016, 13 years after the ship was commissioned, and Lieutenant Commander Thomas M. Mustin died in July 2022.
USSJohn Warner(SSN-785) was named on January 8, 2009,[5] five days after John Warner, former Navy petty officer, former Marine Corps officer, former Secretary of the Navy, and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, retired from the U.S. Senate.[6]
USSCarl M. Levin(DDG-120) was named on April 11, 2016, for Carl M. Levin, a former United States senator from Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The contract for the ship, along with the name, was announced in a press release from General Dynamics, parent company of Bath Iron Works, on March 31, 2016. Levin died on July 29, 2021.
Danzig named one ship for a living person: his predecessor Nitze; England named none for his living predecessors; Winter named one for Warner; Mabus, Ignatius; Spencer, Middendorf; Del Toro, Dalton.
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