50k Boat Names

(beautifulpublicdata.com)

73 points | by jonathanmkeegan 2 hours ago

17 comments

  • rob74 1 hour ago
    I can't help but think this article could have used some more polishing. The stats say that there are 101 boats named "Freedom", but if you enter "Freedom" in the search, it shows 48 boats with names including "Freedom", of which however only one is called just "Freedom". That doesn't really add up?!

    Also, clicking "Movie/TV" yields a paltry 22 boats, which I think is far too few. E.g. the boat called "USS Enterprise" isn't included. Ok, it could be named after the 1958 aircraft carrier, but I would say the odds are far greater that it was named after the Starfleet ships. Then again, I can understand why "Starlight Express" is included under "Music", but why also all other boats with names containing the word "Starlight"?!

    • daemonologist 1 hour ago
      On the first point, I think it's a search of boat names, not boats - they're deduplicated.
      • rob74 1 hour ago
        Sure, but if you click on the boat called "Freedom", it shows you the data of one specific boat, not "there are X boats with this name". So I still think it's inconsistent...
    • squigz 1 hour ago
      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

      • arethuza 1 hour ago
        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

        • squigz 57 minutes ago
          Oh interesting, I didn't know that. It's an even older name than I thought!
          • Gravityloss 30 minutes ago
            And the actual word is French too...
  • lewispb 1 hour ago
    My boat's called Floating Point :)
  • tgtweak 11 minutes ago
    It's like vanity license plates but with even less constraints... "Unsinkable II".
  • xnorswap 1 hour ago
    The "Boat ownership by income" is interesting, although easy to misread at a glance.

    7% of boat owners earning under $25k is of course very different from 7% of people earning under $25k owning a boat.

    I'd love to see an actual chart of boat ownership at income levels, it would read quite differently I'm sure.

  • mrtimo 33 minutes ago
    The article mentions a dataset of names given to people in the USA. This is a fun name explorer WASM based on that data. 811 people in the USA have named their baby 'Diesel': https://docs.malloydata.dev/malloyyo-babynames/name_explorer...
  • BigTuna 2 hours ago
    I've always thought Unsinkable II would be a good boat name
    • spogbiper 13 minutes ago
      unsinkable-2 (copy)-FINAL.revised7-4-19
    • kmoser 1 hour ago
      How about Titanic II?
    • stinkbeetle 1 hour ago
      People think lots of things are good boat names. There's no reason there couldn't have more than one Unsinkable that hadn't sunk, and most boats aren't retired by sinking, so Unsinkable II would fit right in.
      • jollyllama 2 minutes ago
        Parent reply is actually way funnier and more original than the GP, which has already been repeated by two other posters.
      • gilleain 1 hour ago
        What about "Really Actually Unsinkable 9"?
        • sorokod 1 hour ago
          Following in the footsteps of "The Hand of God 137"
          • arethuza 25 minutes ago
            If I buy a yacht I'd name it "The Ends of Invention" - have been keeping that name handy for almost 40 years since I read CP in a oner in May 1988.
        • rrr_oh_man 1 hour ago
          You're missing the "You're absolutely right" prefix
  • svdr 2 hours ago
  • zX41ZdbW 1 hour ago
    If you are interested in the AIS (ship telemetry) data, my team has created a visualization project: https://adsb.exposed/?dataset=Ships&zoom=5&lat=52.3890&lng=4...
  • reactordev 2 hours ago
    I bought a sailboat in 2022 and sailed all over the caribbean from florida from 2022-2025. I came across a lot of funny boat names.

    My boat was not among them sadly as I was serious about mine.

    Fishizzle, Boat Float, Unsinkable II, Knot for Sail, etc.

    • JKCalhoun 36 minutes ago
      Money Pit has stuck with me.
  • Aeroi 2 hours ago
    love this, i'm a boat captain and collect images of terrible boat names on my phone. people are insane, always baffles me what they will name a boat.
    • Uncle_Brumpus 1 hour ago
      I think the 2 funniest I found here are "TT Firebird Ribeye" which just sounds like an incredibly specific steakhouse menu item, and "Privacy II", which I just think is a bit on the funny-ironic side that we're all now looking at their vessel data and violating their privacy.
  • Skidaddle 1 hour ago
    It really needs a picture of each boat!
  • brk 1 hour ago
    It had my boat name, which so far I haven't seen duplicated, and isn't particularly specific to anything that would preclude someone else from using it.
  • hbs18 2 hours ago
    Can't believe there's only one Stugots
  • wxw 1 hour ago
    The top 3 names being

    > Freedom

    > Liberty

    > Serenity

    Reads like a state motto

  • warmwaffles 55 minutes ago
    Someone needs to take "Unsinkable II"
  • mh2266 1 hour ago
    Bust Out Another Thousand
  • mellosouls 2 hours ago
    Disappointed to see no mention of Boaty McBoatface.

    Can't be that often boat naming becomes headlines.

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

    • rob74 1 hour ago
      Probably because the article only uses data from the US, so it would be a bit strange if it included the name of a British AUV. Or are you wondering why no one in the US liked that story enough to name their own boat Boaty McBoatface? There is a Boaty Boat, so that's something...