The procedures and practices involved in Navy ship naming are the products of evolution and tradition, rather than of legislation. In most of the navies, ships are regarded as female, while Russian ships were considered male. More recently, the US Navy has decided to defer to the Associated Press style guide, and refer to ships as "it" - a practice that may improve the post-service employment opportunities of Navy News Service writers, but that does nothing to instill a sense of tradition in the sea services.
Custom adhered to by navies in naming their ships is that a name is only repeated in a later vessel if the predecessor went out of service honourably -- through being sold to another owner, scrapped, or lost by enemy action. The name of a ship destroyed by fire or lost in collision or grounding is not repeated. It would perhaps be more appropriate to decide each case on its merits, but the custom seems quite inflexible.
