Tribal-class names linked martial reputation to imperial recruitment

The Royal Navy looked for names associated with martial reputation and with peoples it hoped might supply recruits for imperial defence. A destroyer's name also needed enough status to inspire its crew without making the ship's possible loss a major symbolic blow. Cossack, Tartar, and Eskimo show how contemporary rivalry with the Soviet Union entered the choice. Nubian could also irritate France because the name pointed toward territory regarded as North African. This reasoning was neither straightforward nor necessarily good, but it reveals the imperial and diplomatic calculations behind the class's names.