List of U.S. military vessels named after living Americans
The naming of United States Navy vessels after living people was common in the earliest years of American history, but as the 20th century began, the Navy had firmly established a practice of naming ships for people only after they had died. In 1969, a Navy panel formally decreed that warships would no longer be named after living persons. That lasted until 1974, when President Richard Nixon announced the naming of an aircraft carrier after United States Representative Carl Vinson. Over the next half-century, the Navy named more ships for living people than it had in the previous two centuries. From October 2020 to March 2023, the Navy named a ship for a living person every eight months, a pace unseen since 1776.