Banks' father was in the Royal Navy and he grew up in North Queensferry right next to the Forth Bridge and the Rosyth naval base - pretty sure that influenced his love of really big things and Ships With Cool Names - the RN being rather good at the latter and there are few bridges with the visual impact of the former.
I was musing on a Culture-type name last night, and came up with;
Anticipation Of A New Iceberg's Arrival, The
They See Me Trawling...
Ice, Ice Baby
"Arbitrary" might be good as it collects snowflakes as a hobby.
That doesn't have the classic "lack of gravitas" of Culture ship-naming conventions though. It reads more like a Morthanveld or Zihdren-Remnanter ship name. Unless there's a joke I'm missing in there.
I have no interest in boating, but I dream of one day buying a boat just so I can name it Ultimate Ship II.
nice. I'm going to call mine "Real Hackers Ship".
That's wonderful. I think you need two: Real Hackers Ship and Real Hackers' Ship.