Name Histories L

Ship Name Histories - Database of histories of ship names beginning with letter L.

Name Origin : The Argentine Republic

Name Origin : French for “Canadian.”

Name Origin: Dr Lacerda, a distinguished African explorer at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1787 he discovered the sources of the Cunene River in Angolia. He was governor of Laurenco Marques.

Lacroma

Name Origin: A Small Island in the Adriatic, on the Dalmatian coast. It contains a monastery with a church founded in 1193 by Richard Coeur-de-Lion of England. The island belonged to the Archduke Maximilian emperor of Mexico, and later to the Crown Prince Archdukle Rundolph, after whose death the Emperor Francis Joseph presented it to the Dominician Friars.

Lady Laurier

Name Origin : Wife of the Right Hon Sir Wilfred Laurier, born 1841; leader of the Liberal party and most prominent statesman of the Dominion, of which he has been Prime Minster since 1896.

Lady Loch

Name Origin : (Victoria)-Elisabeth, daughter of the late Hon Edward Villiers and widow of the first Lord Loch, who was Governor of Victoria from 1884 to 1889.

Lagerbjelke

Name Origin: A noble Swedish family which has given many distinguished Admirals to the Swedish Navy.

Lagos

Name Origin: Town and bay on the south coast of Portugal, the scene of Admiral boseawen’s action with the French Admiral de la Clue in 1759.

Laguna

Name Origin: Lagoon.

La Hire

Name Origin: Etienne Vignolles, surnamed “La Hire”’ born 1399, died 1443. a brave but unscrupulous soldier, he joined the forces f the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII, in wars against the English. He assisted Joan of Arc in her campaigns, and was captured by the English in 1431 in an attempt to liberate her. Escaping, however, soon afterwards, he took to fighting on his own account, plundering friend and foe alike.

Laks

Name Origin: Salmon

Lalande

Name Origin: Jules P. A. Lalande, born 1787, died 1844. He entered the Navy soon after the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, fought in the action off Sables d’Olonnes 1809, and distinguished himself in the West Indies 1824. Louis Philippe charged Lalande as Rear Admiral with the reorganisation of the Mediterranean fleet, which he brought to a high state of perfection, giving special attention to the gunnery department, where he introduced several improvements. He became a Vice-Admiral in 1842, represented Finisterre in the Chamber of Deputies, and was a member of the Conseil d’Amiraute

Lamego

Name Origin: Name of a Brazilian Admiral who was created Baron Laguna.

Lamongan

Name Origin: An active volcano on the Island of Java.

Lampo

Name Origin: A flash of lightning.

Lancaster

Name Origin: A maritime and palatine county of England facing the Irish Sea. Lancaster has the most important cotton manufactories in the world; its principal towns are Liverpool (the second largest port in the British Isles) and Manchester (centre of the cotton manufactory).

Lance

Lancier

Name Origin: Lancer.

Lanciere

Name Origin: Lancer, light cavalryman. The ship name especially commemorates the Lancieri d’Aosta, the oldest corps of Piedmontese cavalry.

Langesund

Name Origin: A fjord on the southeastern coast of Norway.

Lansdowne

Name Origin : Henry Fitzmaurice, fifth Marquis of Lansdowne, born 1845. After having been under secretary for war and for India, he was appointed Governor General of Canada in 1883. In 1888 he was transferred to India, where he acted as Viceroy for six years. He was Secretary of State for War from 1895 to 1900, and for Foreign Affairs from 1900 to 1905.

Lapwing

Lascar Catargiu

Name Origin: former Prime Minister, from 1870 to 1876. Minister of War in 1894. Died 1899.

Lastochki

Name Origin: Swallow.

Latona

Name Origin: Latin name for Leto. In Greek mythology the daughter of Coeus, a Titan, and Phoebe. Driven from Olympus by the Jealous Hera (Juno), she wandered the earth disconsolately until Poseidon (Neptune) took pity on her, and gave her refuge on the island of Delos, which he raised for her from the sea. Here she gave birth to the twin gods Phoebus Apollo and Artemis (Diana).

La Touche Treville

Name Origin: Louis R. M. le Vassor de la Touche Treville, born 1745, died 1802. Having begun his career in the Navy, he exchanged soon after 1768, into the Cavalry only to return, however, to his former profession. He distinguished himself in command of a frigate during the American War 1780-1782. Having attained the rank of Post Captain, he assisted in farming the naval regulations of 1786. In 1793 the Revolutionary Tribunal had him imprisoned and degraded as a Royalist, but on Bonaparte becoming First Consul, he was restored to the service with his former rank of Rear Admiral and given the command of the fleet at Brest. In command of the flotilla of boats at Boulogne, La Touche Treville twice repulsed the English attacks on it under Nelson. In 1801 he was promoted to Vice-Admiral and given the command of the Toulon fleet. He died onboard his flagship the following year.

Laurvig

Name Origin: A seaport town of the fjord of that name, and capital of the province iof Jarlsberg.

Lavoisier

Name Origin: Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, born 1743, died 1794, one of the founders of modern chemistry. Besides many other discoveries, science owes to him the theory of oxidation, the present system of nomenclature in chemistry, and the recognition of metals as elements. Arrested during the Reign of Terror as one of the twenty-eight farmers general of taxes, he was condemned to death and guillotined.

Lawrence

Name Origin : (1) John, Lord Lawrence; born 1811, died 1879. He early entered the H.E.I. Co’s service. On the Punjab being annexed he was made its Lieutenant Governor, and obtained such influence over the Sikhs that, when the Mutiny broke out in 1857, he was able to raise 60,000 men, with whose assistance Delhi was captured after a siege of three months. From 1863 to 1868 he was Viceroy of India, and rewarded with a Peerage the following year.

(2) General Sir Henry Lawrence, elder brother of the preceding; born in Ceylon, 1806, died 1857. Having joined the Bengal Artillery in 1823, he took part in the first Burmese War 1828; first Afghan War 1838; and the Sikh Wars of 1845 and 1848. Placed in charge of Rajputana in 1856, he defended Lucknow during the Mutiny of the following year for four months, dying ion July 29^th 1857, from a shell wound received two days before.

Leander

Name Origin: A Greek youth living at Abydos on the Hellespont. He loved Hero, the beautiful priestess of Aphrodite, who dwelt at Setos, on the opposite shore, and used to swim across to her every night, guided by a lamp which she placed in her tower. But one stormy night Hero’s lamp was extinguished, and Leander was drowned. In the morning she found his body at the foot of her tower, and in despair she flung herself into the sea.

Leda

Name Origin: In Greek mythology the wife of tyndareus, king of Sparta. She was beloved by Zeus (Jupiter), who visited her in the shape of a swan. She bore the god of twins Castor and Pollux and the beautiful Helen of Troy.

Lee

Name Origin: A small river, known also as Lee, a tributary of the Thames, which it joins just below the Isle of Dogs. There are two small rivers of this name in Ireland.

Leger

Name Origin: Light (as opposed to heavy).

Legki

Name Origin: Light.

Leipzig

Name Origin: University town in the kingdom of Saxony, and seat of the supreme court of justice of the Empire. Here on the 16^th, 18^th, and 19^th October 1813 the allied forces of Prussia, Austria, Russia, Etc, signally defeated the French under Napoleon I.

Leitha

Name Origin: A tributary of the river Danube which divides the Austro-Hungarian monarchy into the “Cis-Leithanian portion (Austria proper and its dependencies) and the “Trans Leithanian” portion (Hungary and its dependencies).

Lena

Name Origin: River in East Siberia.

Leon Gambetta

Name Origin: Born 1838, died 1882; the most distinguished French statesman of our times. The son of a Genoese Grover at Marseilles, he was called to the Bar in 1859, and in 1869 entered Parliament. A violent opponent of the Second Empire, he led the agitation, which brought about its downfall in 1870, and became one of the members of the Government of National Defence. Escaping from besieged Paris by balloon, he went to Tours, where in his capacity as Minister of Interior and of War, he was indefatigable in organising a desperate resistance to the invaders of his country. Resigning office at the conclusion of peace, he established and edited an influential newspaper. In 1876 he re-entered Parliament, and was active I opposing all reactionary intrigues, and in attempting to restore the system known as Scrutin de liste. He became President of the Chamber in 1879, and two years later formed the Cabinet known as a Grand Ministere. Suspected attaining at dictatorship, his Government was turned out of office a few months later, and he died the same year.

Leopard

Lepanto

Name Origin: A promontory at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth (also called the Gulf of Lepanto), off which in 1571 a great victory was won by the Christian fleet, composed of Spanish, Papal, Venetian, and other contingents, under the command of Don John of Austria, over the Turkish fleet, commanded by Ali Pasha.

Lepanto

Name Origin: A cape on the Gulf of Corinth or Lepanto, off which in 1571, a great victory gained by the allied Christian fleet, composed of a large Spanish contingent and smaller ones of Venetian and Papal vessels, etc., under the command of Don John of Austria, over the Turkish fleet, commanded by Ali Pasha.

Letoochi

Name Origin: Flying.

Leven

Name Origin: A river issuing from Windermere (Lancashire) and flowing into Morecambe Bay. There is another small river of this name in Yorkshire, tributary of the Tees, and there are two in Scotland.

Leviathan

Name Origin: A sea monster, serpent or crocodile, repeatedly mentioned in the Bible.

Libellule

Name Origin: Dragon fly.

Liberal

Name Origin: The ship name commemorates a success of the Liberal party in 1834.

Libertad

Name Origin : Liberty

Liberte

Name Origin: Liberty.

Lidador

Name Origin: Active.

Lieh

Name Origin: Scattered.

Lieutenant Burakoff

Name Origin: Distinguished himself in command of a torpedo boat during the attack on the Taku forts by the international forces in 1901.

Lieutenant Ilyin

Name Origin: Dmitri Sergeievitch Iiyin entered the Navy in 1761. In 1770 he received te command of a small ship in the Mediterranean, with which during the battle of Chesme he assailed a large Turkish man of war, succeeded in setting her on fire, and returned uninjured through the hostile line to his own squadron. In command of the Molnia he took part in the storming of the fortress of Mytilene in 1771, and in the bombardment of Chesme in 1772.

Lieutenant Maleyeff

Name Origin: Served onboard the destroyer Strashni during the war with Japan, and perished with that vessel during an action off Port Arthur in 1904

Lieutenant Poostchin

Name Origin: Distinguished himself during the war with turkey in 1877 in command of a torpedo boat in the Black Sea.

Lieutenant Sergeyeff

Name Origin: Distinguished himself in command of the destroyer steregoustchi during the war with Japan in 1904, going down with his vessel during an action off Port Arthur.

Lieutenant Shestakoff

Name Origin: Distinguished himself in command of a torpedo launch in the Danube during the war with Turkey in 1877.

Lieutenant Zatsarenni

Name Origin: Distinguished himself in command of a torpedo boat in the Black Sea during the war with turkey in 1877.

Liffey

Name Origin: A small river in Ireland flowing by Dublin into Dublin Bay.

Lightning

Liguria

Name Origin: Province on the Gulf of Genoa. In ancient times the tribes of the Ligures inhabited this and the surrounding districts.

Likhoi

Name Origin: Bold.

Lille Belt

Name Origin: Little Belt, straits between the island of Fuen and the coast of Schleswig.

Lillesand

Name Origin: A town on the western shore of the Skager Rack, in the province of Nadenaes.

Limpopo

Name Origin: A river in Southeast Africa which falls into the Indian Ocean north of Delagoa Bay.

Lindormen

Name Origin: Dragon.

Linois

Name Origin: Charles A. L. Durand, Comte de Linois; born 1761, died 1848. In 1794, in command of the frigate Atlante, he gallantly fought the British ship Swiftsure, but was defeated and captured. On June 23^rd 1795, as Captain of the Formidable, he fought in the battle of Groix and was again taken prisoner. In 1801, as Rear Admiral, he commanded under Gantheaume at the battle of Porto Ferrajo, when his old assailant, the Swiftsure was captured. He fought and repulsed Admiral Saumarez in the Bay of Algeciras in the same year. After the rupture if the Peace of Amiens, he commanded the fleet in the West Indies, and did much damage to British trade. In 1814 he was made Governor of Guadaloupe. On the news of Napoleon’s return from Elba the inhabitants of Guadaloupe declared in his favour, whereupon the English invaded the island; Linois capitulated, and returned a prisoner to England. The French government exonerated him, however, from the charge of treason, and he retired from the Navy with the rank of Vice Admiral.

Lively

Locust

Loke

Name Origin: In Norse mythology the god of fire. His nature is similar to the element over which he reigns-false, fickle, and dangerous.

Lom

Name Origin: Loom or loon, a sea bird also known as diver.

Lombardia

Name Origin: Lombardy, provinces in Northern Italy. The name is derived from the Longobardi, “Longbeards,” a Germanic tribe that established a kingdom in these regions in the sixth century.

Lombok

Name Origin: One of the Lesser Sunda Islands between the islands of Baly and Sumbawa.

London

Longhi

Name Origin: Lance, spear

Lonsdale

Name Origin : (Victoria)-Captain Lonsdale of the 4^th Regiment, under the title of Resident Magistrate, was the first Governor of what is now the State of Victoria in the Commonwealth, from 1836 to 1839.

Lord Nelson

Name Origin: Vice Admiral Horation Nelson, viscount Nelson of the Nile; born 1758, died 1805. He entered the Navy in 1770, and rose to be Lieutenant in 1777, Commander 1778, and Captain in 1779. In this rank he commanded the Hinchinbrook in the San Juan expedition, but had to be invalided. From 1781 to 1787 he served chiefly in the West Indies. After a prolonged period of half pay he was given the command of the Agamemnon, 74, at the outbreak of the war with the French Republic in 1793, and joined the Mediterranean Station under Lord Hood, where he fought four frigates off Sardinia on October 22^nd captured Bastia on 23^rd 1794, after a siege of seven weeks, and later in this year took part in the siege of Calvi, at which he lost an eye. During the chase of the Toyulon fleet by Hotham he captured the Ca Ira and Censeur in March 1795, and took part in Hotham’s second engagement on July 13^th of that year. Appointed Commodore shortly afterwards, with his broad pennant in the Captain, he blockaded Leghorn, took Porto Ferrajo and Capraja in 1796, and in December, in the Minerve, frigate on his way westward, captured with her the Spanish frigate La Sabina. He rejoined Sir John Jervis off Cape St. Vincent on the eve of the great battle of February 14^th 1797, in which he played a brilliant part with the Captain, heading off the retreating Spanish line, and then taking, by boarding, the San Nicholas and San Josef. Having been made Rear Admiral just before the battle, he was rewarded with the knighthood of the Bath. In July 1797 he led the unsuccessful expedition against the town of Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, in which he lost his right arm. In March 1798 he arrived off Toulon with a small squadron, but being driven away by a gale, Bonaparte’s great expedition sailed there unmolested for Egypt, taking Malta on the way. Nelson, divining its destination, sailed for Alexandria, where he arrived two days before Bonaparte; not finding him he worked back to Sicily, and again sailing east, arrived off Aboukir Bay at sunset on August 1^st 1798, and instantly attacked and destroyed the French fleet he found there at anchor. Until his return to England late in 1800 he was chiefly occupied in aiding the King of Naples, who created him Duke of Bronte. Promoted to Voce Admiral early in 1801, he sailed in March as second in command of Sir Hyde Parker’s fleet for the Baltic. On April 1^st his Commander-in-Chief with a portion of the fleet to attack the Danish fleet moored off Copenhagen, under the guns of numerous forts, and won a complete victory detached him; for this service he was created Viscount. From july 1801 to the following Aprilo he acted in command of a fleet employed between Orford Ness and Beachy Head to prevent the threatened invasion from France. Appointed Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean in May 1803, he hoisted his flag in the Victory, and at once proceeded to his post off Toulon, to which he kept unflinchingly until the French gave him the ship in January 1805, during an unavoidable short absence. After a vain search to south and east, Nelson received information of the enemy’s movements of Toulon early in March; he followed them to Gibraltar, and thence early in May to the West Indies. Having vainly searched for him there, he sailed again for Europe in the middle of june, convinced that the Toulon ships were ahead of him. Without sighting them he drove them into Calder’s arms off Finisterre and returned homes himself at the end of August, after having called at Gibraltar. Ordered to resume command, he sailed from England for the last time on September 14^th, and arrived off Cadiz, where he joined his fleet on the 29^th. On October 19^th the Franco-Spanish fleets came out of Cadiz, and two days later were gloriously defeated off Cape Trafalgar, Nelson being killed. His body was brought to England, and buried in great state in St. Paul’s Cathedral on January 9^th 1806.

Loreley

Name Origin: A legendary Syren of the Rhine, well known as the subject of a poem by Heine.Lothringen- Lorraine, since 1871, a portion of the German “Reichsland” (Imperial domain), Alsace-Lorraine. From the tenth to the eighteenth century there existed a duchy of Lorraine, which situated between Germany and France, but nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire, gradually fell more and more under French control until, in 1738, it was definitely absorbed by France. The great fortress of Metz is its chief city.

Los Andes

Name Origin : The great mountain range, which separates the Argentine Republic from Chile.

Lososs

Name Origin: Salmon.

Loutre

Name Origin: Otter.

Lovki

Name Origin: Skilful.

Lubeck

Name Origin: One of the three free (sovereign) “Hanseatic” cities of the German Empire.

Luchs

Name Origin: Lynx.

Lucinda

Name Origin : (Queensland)-Lady Musgrave, wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave, who was Governor of Queensland from 1883 to 1888.

Luctor et Emergo

Name Origin: “Struggling I emerge” (from the sea), the motto of the province of Zealand. This vessel is a submarine.

Ludion

Name Origin: The name of an instrument used in physics for demonstrating the compressibility of air in water. This vessel is a submarine.

Lussin

Name Origin: One of the Islands in the Gulf of Quarnero in the Adriatic.

Lyn

Name Origin: Lightning.

Lynx

Lytton

Name Origin : Edward Robert, second Baron and first Earl of Lytton born 1831, died 1891, son of Bulwer Lytton, the author, poet, and politician. Entering the Diplomatic Service in 1849, he was Minister at Lisbon 1874-1876, Viceroy of India 1876-1880, and Ambassador in Paris from 1887 till his death.