How a naming story can harden into fact

This section is a compact lesson in source criticism. The earliest printed claim identified here appears in a 1960s book, roughly forty years after the designs were considered. The supposed primary evidence is a politician's personal note about a conversation with Geddes, rather than an Admiralty naming paper or committee decision. Even a writer with connections to participants can inherit an anecdote that has grown through repeated telling. Successive historians can then soften or sharpen one another's wording until a tentative suggestion looks like a settled fact.