Hacker News Reader

Comment by squigz | Hacker News Reader

Err, the Enterprise has been a ship name for a few hundred years, quite a bit before Star Trek was ever conceived.

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

There's a fun time loop here: The Star Trek Enterprise and the real-life space shuttle Enterprise were each named after the other. In real life, the shuttle was named after the Star Trek ship. In-universe, the first starship Enterprise (NX-01) was named after the space shuttle. [Edit: I remember reading that years ago, but can't find any official source saying so now, although the intro to the Star Trek Enterprise tv series does emphasize the shuttle.]

(Of course, both really come from a long lineage of naval vessels with the name.)

Wikipedia (FWIW) says that the fictional USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was named after the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) rather than the Space Shuttle Enterprise (OV-101).

Folks, you're both correct!

GP is referring to in-universe canon, where the NCC-1701 was conceived and constructed by Starfleet, long after the Space Shuttle program was obsolete.

Wikipedia articles are largely discouraged from using in-universe perspectives or content, as opposed to Fandom/Wikia/Memory Alpha.

Right. Although in-universe, it was the NX-01 that was the genesis of the name for starships. NCC-1701 was a century later.

Amusing that the page for ships called HMS Enterprise linked to from the USS Enterprise page points out that the name came originally from the French!

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

Oh interesting, I didn't know that. It's an even older name than I thought!

And the actual word is French too...

...although the French spell it with an extra "r". And they had more ships that were named Entreprenant(e) (Enterprising) than Entreprise...

Indeed they did - all the way back to 1672:

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

> .although the French spell it with an extra "r".

We don't:

    enterprise
    entreprise

It's not "entrerprise" (that'd be an additional 'r').

It's not totally unlike "center", which is "centre" in french and also "centre" in UK english (but pronounced "center", unless I'm mistaken).

I always thought the carrier was named after Enterprise, PA since the US Navy usually names cruisers after medium sized cities and the earlier carriers were converted cruiser hulls.

Except there is no such place. Perhaps you're thinking of Intercourse, PA?

Nostromo could be a reference to Joseph Contrad's novel. Its also an italian word for boatswain (according to Wikipedia)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com