Japanese Warship Will Not be Named in Barack Obama's Honor

Actually, Barack, or anyone else for that matter, should not be too terribly upset to learn that the chances of having a Japaneses warship named after them is even less than winning the lottery. In fact the chance is exactly ZERO as Japanese warships have never been named after individual people.

Japan's Maritime Defense Force (Japan no longer has a "Navy" as it was abolished in 1947 following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes.) newest vessel is the helicopter-carrying destroyer Hyuga shown above. Hyuga is named for a province near the southwest tip of Japan.

Trivia of Note:

• The original Hyuga was completed in 1918 as a battleship but was later converted to an aircraft carrier after the Japan's devastating losses at Midway. Because the flight deck was so short, the 22 aircraft on Hyuga had to be launched by catapult and could not return to the ship to land. The aircraft were forced to land on either a normal carrier or at land-based runways.
• During World War II, there were fifty-six submarines larger than 3,000 tons in the entire world. Fifty-two of these were Japanese.
• Japan does not assign names to its submarines.
• Japanese ship names are often followed by the word maru (丸, meaning "circle"). Warships were first named with this convention in the 16th century. A common interpretation is that ships were thought of as floating castles, and that the word maru refers to the defensive "circles" that protect castles. For the past few centuries, however, only commercial and private vessels bore the maru suffix and the naming convention has come to symbolize a blessing of good hope that will allow the ship to leave port, travel the world, and then to complete the circle by returning safely home.
• Obama may in fact be more perplexed to learn that there are two US warships named USS John S. McCain. USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) is an Arleigh Burke class destroyer that was commissioned in 1994 and is homeported at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. The ship is named after John S. McCain, Jr. and John S. McCain Sr., both Admirals in the United States Navy and the father and grandfather of Senator John S. McCain III. The first USS John S. McCain was commissioned as a destroyer-leader in 1953 and later converted to a destroyer. She was named solely for the elder McCain.