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Japanese Ship name list, and naming conventions.


Cairo1

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Hello, I would like to offer some insight into Japanese naming conventions in hopes the current state of the name list for Japanese ships is changed. I have notices some fairly inappropriate names for Japanese ships here and there.

Japanese Ships tend to follow a fairly simple naming convention with some exceptions and odd balls now and then.

Pre Dreads, Armored cruisers, Heavy Cruisers,some Gunboats, and battlecruisers, have carried names from Mountains. Ex: Atago, Ibuki, Haruna, Akagi, Kasuga.

Semi-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, Super dreadnoughts, battleships, and super battleships have carried the archaic names from provinces. Ex: Nagato, Setsu, Musashi, Tosa.

Light cruisers, some un protected cruisers, and some gun boats had names of rivers: Tatsuta, Banjo, Chikuma.

Destroyers are the most fun with names derived from a number of things but mostly Natural phenomena or trees, Ex: Oboro(moonlight), Murakumo(village clouds), Inazuma(sudden lightning), Matsu(pine tree), Momo(peach tree)

Torpedo boats have carried names relating to birds, Chidori(1000 birds), Tomozuru(friendly crane), Kiji (pheasant)

protected cruisers seem to have names of Islands, but some are from places relating to rivers, gorges, valleys, and other land masses that are related to water. Ex Takachiho, Unebi, Chiyoda, Tone(both a river, and a river valley)

Carries have always been named after birds, however 3 exceptions blare Kaga, Akagi, and Shinano, Kaga and Shinanao were battleships and are named after provinces, and Akagi a battle cruiser is a mountain. Ex: Hosho(flying phoenix), Zuikaku (lucky crane) Junyo (peregrine falcon?)

Corvettes are all over the place mountains, provinces, and rives, Ex: Tenryu, Yamato, Hiei

Japan only had 2 "modern" Ironclads Fuso, and Chinyen. Fuso is a province name, and Chenyen was captrued from China, its name was just adapted to the Japanese pronunciation.

 

I would be happy to help develop a full name list of both used and suitable names for differing ship types that are historical and follow Japanese naming conventions. I work in Japan, and speak it as a second language, I am also a member of the Millatery Historical society the Saiki Rekishinkai. If Voice acting becomes a thing I would know several people who would be interested in contributing.

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5 hours ago, Cairo1 said:

Corvettes are all over the place mountains, provinces, and rives, Ex: Tenryu, Yamato, Hiei

tenryuu was originally a cruiser (light cruiser in ww2), yamato was a battleship named after the historical province of yamato (nowadays named nara), hiei was a battlecruiser (kongou class in ww2) named after mount hiei.

modern japanese ships doesnt really follow a single naming scheme like they did in prior to the surrender in ww2, they have kept a few names though like yuudachi, murasame, souryuu, hyuuga and kongou of which, souryuu is a submarine (so much for a bird name...), hyuuga is a heli carrier, kongou is a guided missile destroyer, yuudachi and murasame are destroyers

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I think we should have a pinned thread for this along with naming conventions for every nation to be featured.

The devs should diviate if they litteraly struggle to find names but can ask the community for suggestions.

Atm however getting the game mechanics done is more important otherwise i doubt many would care if the game is lackluster (it isn't even at this stage but i hope you understand what i mean by this).

Either way this will still be good thing. But if the devs do run out of names for whatever nation lets give them some suggestions rather than go mental (especially if they listen well we should have no probs with that).

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I can assist with Qing Dynasty naming, although to be fair, they don't really have a naming scheme to go for. 

Still the current naming scheme in for Qing ship is both inconsistent with their naming scheme, and sometime don't even make sense in Chinese (Of which I am a speaker). Still, I understand this is far from the priority right now.

But it rather difficult to come up with a "naming scheme" since : (Quoting myself from the RtW forum, where I've edited a expanded Qing ship namelist)

The main issue with Chinese ship naming at that time is that ships are really not named based on their type. Ship names are generally picked based on certain particular meaning, and to an extent convey the ship's role. For example, the two ramming cruiser of the BeiYang Navy are named Chao-Yong(Exceeding Courage) and Yang-Wei(Display Might), where as cruiser have names like Zhi-Yuan(Reaching Far) and battleship like Ding-Yuan(Pacifying great expanse)(These are very rough translations since many of these terms are old Chinese figure of speech). Furthermore, ships ordered at similar time tends to be named similarly, regardless of type. This is why there are many xxxx-Yuan ships in the Beiyang Navy. There also seems to be no practice of naming ships after location and people as far as I know in Qing Dynasty.
 

But in anycase, should the team decide to go with a more appropriate naming scheme for the period, I can be of help. (Though someone with more knowledge in old Chinese is probably going to be even better)

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16 hours ago, DeiLwynnA said:

tenryuu was originally a cruiser (light cruiser in ww2), yamato was a battleship named after the historical province of yamato (nowadays named nara), hiei was a battlecruiser (kongou class in ww2) named after mount hiei.

modern japanese ships doesnt really follow a single naming scheme like they did in prior to the surrender in ww2, they have kept a few names though like yuudachi, murasame, souryuu, hyuuga and kongou of which, souryuu is a submarine (so much for a bird name...), hyuuga is a heli carrier, kongou is a guided missile destroyer, yuudachi and murasame are destroyers

These are just Wikipedia articles, but here are some basic sources about Those names chosen. A common occurrence is ship names are taken from particular places, and those names and places are favored to be reused. For Example there have been 5 ships named Ikazuchi if you include the modern one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_corvette_Tenryū

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ironclad_Hiei

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_corvette_Yamato

And there are Modern Naming conventions For the Current Japanese Navy.

Osumi, Kunisaki, Ise, Hyuga, Kaga, and Izumo are all archaic province names. Shimokita is a peninsula but i don't remember if it used to be a province name. Thus we can conclude that Carriers of today are the modern top capital ship thus having the name shifted from battleships.

1st rate DDGs or, rather the Arleigh Burke derivatives, are named for mountains Kongo, Kirishima, Maya, Taking the place of the Heavy cruiser/Battlecruiser rating.

DDs are the same as DDs from WWII, Asahi was an odd choice IMO though though it may just be for morning sun rather then the mountain of that name.

Subs have names of dragons, and wave derived names, the Soryu class and Oyashio. the current sub class is really the outlier as even from USS Mingo, a Gato given to japan renamed Kuroshio all submarines have ended in 潮 (shio) meaning Tide, or wave. 

I could go on, but Modern ships while Interesting are not the point of interest on this forum.

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13 hours ago, Mycophobia said:

I can assist with Qing Dynasty naming, although to be fair, they don't really have a naming scheme to go for. 

Still the current naming scheme in for Qing ship is both inconsistent with their naming scheme, and sometime don't even make sense in Chinese (Of which I am a speaker). Still, I understand this is far from the priority right now.

But it rather difficult to come up with a "naming scheme" since : (Quoting myself from the RtW forum, where I've edited a expanded Qing ship namelist)

The main issue with Chinese ship naming at that time is that ships are really not named based on their type. Ship names are generally picked based on certain particular meaning, and to an extent convey the ship's role. For example, the two ramming cruiser of the BeiYang Navy are named Chao-Yong(Exceeding Courage) and Yang-Wei(Display Might), where as cruiser have names like Zhi-Yuan(Reaching Far) and battleship like Ding-Yuan(Pacifying great expanse)(These are very rough translations since many of these terms are old Chinese figure of speech). Furthermore, ships ordered at similar time tends to be named similarly, regardless of type. This is why there are many xxxx-Yuan ships in the Beiyang Navy. There also seems to be no practice of naming ships after location and people as far as I know in Qing Dynasty.
 

But in anycase, should the team decide to go with a more appropriate naming scheme for the period, I can be of help. (Though someone with more knowledge in old Chinese is probably going to be even better)

Yes, you get the point.

As a local Chinese, I find that in this game, Chinese warship names are extremely wierd, some are even ridiculous.

When I am free, I will make a list of suggestion.

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