Starship registry

A **starship registry** was the name, number, or other identifying information assigned to spacecraft in order to differentiate them from each other.

## United Federation of Planets

The system used by the United Federation of Planets for its own craft entailed the assignment of a unique number to each ordered hull. Record of code assignment was kept in the Starfleet Registry of Vessels. For identification purposes, the service also assigned prefixes and numbers to vessels of other services, agencies, and governments, which were retained in its Foreign Vessel Registry.

Within the Federation's system a registry had two components: name and number. Both were usually preceded by a prefix. A name prefix was a series of letters that preceded a vessel's designation and communicated its operating authority. A number prefix was a series of letters that preceded a starship's registry code.

For vessels operated by Starfleet or other Federation agencies, a prototype of a class typically carried the lowest hull number of the class. For example, the USS *Intrepid* was the namesake of the *Intrepid*-class and bore the registry NCC-74600, with other vessels of the class carried higher numbers. A rare occurance, begun with the launch of USS *Enterprise* (NCC-1701-A) in 2286, was to append a letter to the registry code to honor a starship's legacy.

When ordered hulls failed to begin construction, or were canceled before completion, their numbers would return to the pool of available registries. The code could be reassigned, sometimes at a much later date, and thus a registry was not always indicative of the construction period of a vessel. Such an example was the *Constitution*-class USS *Excalibur*, which had a lower registry (NCC-1664) than the USS *Constitution* (NCC-1700), lead ship of the class.

In the case of some notable vessels, a letter could be appended to the registry number for successive use of the craft’s name. The most famous example being the lineage of starships named USS *Enterprise*.

Starfleet spacecraft classified as auxiliary craft generally did not receive a registry number. Instead they would carry the code of their parent vessel and were assigned a craft number. Those that were given names would also not use name prefixes.

### Name prefixes

The following is a list of those prefixes applied by Starfleet to a starship's name to indicate its allegiance.

## Klingon Empire

Names for spacecraft within the Klingon Empire followed the pattern of hull class, spaceframe lineage, then a vessel's specific name. Lettered prefixes were not used.

All Klingon starships were required to be entered onto the *wo'Duj tetlh,* the "Imperial ship list." Since most vessels were operated by individual Houses, registries consisted of the House name followed by a sequentially assigned number. The lower the number of a House-operated vessel, the longer it had been in service with said House.

Starships operated directly by the Klingon Defense Force, specifically in the Internal Security Force, carried registries beginning with *Hubbeq* the tlhIngan Hol word for "defense force." Numbers were assigned sequentially, but were often reused once a registry had been retired for a few decades.

## Romulan Star Empire and Romulan Republic

The Romulan Star Navy of the Romulan Star Empire used a name prefix that indicated the affiliation of a vessel. The system was continued by the Romulan Republic Militia.

### Number prefixes

When the Romulan Republic Navy was formally organized, it created the *Faiihr'rrhiet Rheihhu* or Republic Starship Record to document the vessels affiliated with the Republic. Vessels were assigned ascending numbers, which were preceded by FR, as they were registered on the list.

## Cardassian Union

### Cardassian Guard

Warships of the Cardassian Guard were only given a name for their registry and no two vessels active at the same time bore the same name. During maneuvers involving starships from multiple Orders, the Order in which a starship was assigned would be appended as a prefix to the name for operational efficiency.

### Cardassian Civil Defense Force

With the formation of the Cardassian Civil Defense Force after the Dominion War, Union vessels adopted a lettered prefix like Starfleet in order to be differentiated from the Guard and non-Union starships. The name of the service was translated from Cardăsda as "Cardassia's shield," and the name prefix reflected this. *Maçliyd văhar* was the abbreviation for "shield vessel" and the letters were followed by a unique name assigned to each spacecraft. Like the Guard before it, the CDF continued to give each vessel a unique name, but now carried a lettered prefix.

## Appendices

### Sources consulted

* Registry article at *Memory Alpha*.
* Starfleet Registry article at *Memory Alpha*.
* Registry number article at *Memory Beta*.
* Registry article at the *Star Trek Online Wiki*.
* Category:Starship registries article at *Memory Beta*.

### Footnotes

1. ↑ Naming Ships article at the Klingon Language Wiki.