This is an alphabetical list of the of all ships that have been in service with the Royal Navy, or with predecessor fleets formally in the service of the Kingdom of England or the Commonwealth of England. The list also includes fictional vessels which have prominently featured in literature about the Royal Navy. Names are traditionally re-used over the years, and have been carried by more than one ship.
Altogether over 13,000 ships have been in service with the Royal Navy.
Unlike many other naval services, the Royal Navy designates certain types of shore establishment (e.g. barracks, naval air stations and training establishments) as "ships" and names them accordingly. These establishments are often referred to in service slang as stone frigates.
Lists of ship names
Due to the large number of names the list has been split into smaller lists:
Alphabetical
By type of ship
By namesake
Fictional RN ship names
Many novels and films about the Royal Navy feature fictional ships, but most use real names. This is a list of fictional names of note. Where real ship names are used fictionally, there is a link to the actual ships using that name.
Fictional wooden RN ships
In novels
In film, television and radio
Fictional metal RN ships
Pre-World War II
- The original 1920s edition of the H. P. Gibson naval board game Dover Patrol used a number of real RN ship names, but generally attached them to different ship classes. Thus the "Flagships" were H.M.S. and , and the "Super Dreadnoughts" were H.M.S. , , Canada and India, but few of these resembled the actual ships with the same names in the drawings used on the playing pieces. The "Dreadnoughts" were given all new 'County' names: H.M.S. Surrey, Middlesex, Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the "Battle Cruisers" had 'Town' names: H.M.S. , , , , and . "Light Cruisers" had animal names: , , , , , , and ; "Destroyers" had 'Bird' names: , , , , , Seagull, and ; and "Auxiliary Cruisers" were given insect names: , , Firefly, , , , Mosquito and . In the revised edition of the game published after World War II, the "Flagships" and "Vice Flagships" were unnamed, but all the other names shown above were retained, including the four wholly fictional county names given to the "Battleships" (reclassified from "Dreadnoughts").
- ("third-class cruiser"); also "H M Battlecruiser " and "her attendant light cruiser " (from the 1931 novel Brown on Resolution by C. S. Forester)
- Clampherdown (from The Ballad of the "Clampherdown" by Rudyard Kipling (1892); satirising the s and )
- Rutland and ("second-class cruiser" and "armoured cruiser" respectively, in the 1935 John Mills film Brown on Resolution; portrayed by , Destroyer Leader , and )
- (an "ironclad torpedo ram" from the 1898 novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells)
In World War II novels
- ( from The Cruiser by Warren Tute)
- Apache ( in the short story Gold From Crete by C. S. Forester)
- (from The Ship by C. S. Forester; inspired by )
- Colony, River, and (River and s in H M Frigate (1946) and the novel The Cruel Sea (1951) by Nicholas Monsarrat. In the 1953 film version HMS Saltash was depicted by : , and hence named Saltash Castle)
- Compass Rose and Flower (s in the short story H M Corvette (1942) and the novel The Cruel Sea (1951) by Nicholas Monsarrat)
- Conqueror (battleship frequently referred to in the novel The Destroyers by Douglas Reeman; clearly based on )
- , , Invader, and Blue Ranger (escort carriers of the 14th Aircraft Carrier Squadron in Alistair MacLean's novel HMS Ulysses)
- Dipper and Winger (Kingfisher-class corvettes in the stories East Coast Corvette (1943) and Corvette Command (1944), by Nicholas Monsarrat; republished with H M Corvette as Three Corvettes in 1945)
- (G-class destroyer in the novel Killing Ground by Douglas Reeman)
- Jubilee (minesweeper in Nicholas Monsarrat's unfinished final novel The Master Mariner)
- Lomond (leader of a flotilla of fictional V and W-class destroyers in the novel The Destroyers by Douglas Reeman)
- (from the short story "HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour" by Nicholas Monsarrat; based on a 1927 sloop)
- Nairn (River-class frigate in Alistair MacLean's 1955 novel HMS Ulysses)
- (S-class destroyer in Alistair MacLean's novels The Guns of Navarone and Force 10 From Navarone)
- (from HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean, based on a fictional )
- Vagabond ( in the 1989 novel The Fighting Spirit by Charles Gidley (Wheeler))
- Vectra and (escorts of the 14th Aircraft Carrier Squadron in Alistair MacLean's novel HMS Ulysses)
- Viperous ( from the novel The Cruel Sea (1953) by Nicholas Monsarrat)
- Ventnor, Victor, Warden, Warlock, Waxwing, Whiplash and Whirlpool (members of a flotilla of fictional s in the novel The Destroyers by Douglas Reeman)
- Wildebeeste (almost certainly a destroyer, operating alongside the main character's unnamed destroyer in the novel Pincher Martin by William Golding)
In World War II films
Post-war novels
- Aries ( from The Zhukov Briefing by Antony Trew)
- (Type 23 frigate in Mike Lunnon-Wood's novel King's Shilling)
- Belligerent (assault ship from The Zhukov Briefing by Antony Trew)
- Bluewhale (Porpoise-class submarine from The Zhukov Briefing by Antony Trew)
- Carousel (from We Saw the Sea by John Winton; based on s in the Dartmouth Training Squadron)
- (aircraft carrier from the novel HMS Leviathan by John Winton; the real Majestic-class carrier with this name was never completed)
- (an "obsolete frigate" in the 1988 novel Medusa by Hammond Innes)
- ( from One of our Warships by John Winton)
- (submarine from Down the Hatch and All the Nice Girls by John Winton)
- (fictional from The Fighting Temeraire by John Winton)
Post-war film and media
See also
Notes
References