French and British fleets sometimes included ships with the same name, such as Formidable. Captured French warships could carry their names into Royal Navy service, where later vessels reused them as established naval names. In this interpretation, many of the inherited names came from titles associated with Louis XIV, and British captures transferred much of that vocabulary across the Channel. An apparent source of order-of-battle confusion therefore opens a lesson about prizes, institutional memory, and naval naming traditions.
Notable Point · 36:42-37:43
French prizes shaped Royal Navy ship names
The recurring name Formidable opens an aside on how captured French warships transferred names associated with Louis XIV into Royal Navy tradition.