ship names

[Diderick A. den Bakker]

Once more about the -ia endings in (place) names: the more examples one finds, the more obvious it becomes: they are all originally Latin words. In the early Middle Ages Latin was the only international language: every educated person could speak it. When national languages became more important, they adopted large numbers of Latin words. This is especially true for English, French. This explains why in so many European languages, names of countries are still based on Latin. The last letter -a indicates the gender of the word: -a is feminine.
There is no real linguistic explanation why ships in English are considered feminine: it just happened. Perhaps because a sailor always 'loves' his ship?

[Kevin WS]

Darter - well done!!!!

Herky - My understanding is similar to what people have already mentioned. Cunard did name vessels ending in ..."ia" as a matter of policy. White Star had ships with names ending in ....."ic".

Why ...."ia" though? Apparently, from the late Victorian times, this addition was held to convey a sense of majesty, power etc.

As in "Herkia" for example!!

[airdave]

Adding "ia" to the end of a (common?) noun is how (Greek derivative) you turn any name (Person or Place) into its feminine form.
Ships/Boats are generally considered feminine.
I think its that simple.

[herky]

Originally Posted by darter

Just thinking about the names gives me a Hernia.
2nd Q... She?...When a ship comes into port she usually gets tied up to a buoy.

what sort of females do you know ??????

[herky]

Originally Posted by airdave

Adding "ia" to the end of a (common?) noun is how (Greek derivative) you turn any name (Person or Place) into its feminine form.
Ships/Boats are generally considered feminine.
I think its that simple.

so when ships are named after places ie arcadia,iberia the places are already named as females???

[Graham]

Thanks Herky, quite right...

[herky]

Originally Posted by Graham

Thanks Herky, quite right...

yup all ships are referred to as she even warships and ships name after males