Why US destroyer escorts were not initially called frigates

Why were the Buckley and Evarts destroyer escorts not called frigates despite having 3-inch main guns?

Their designation followed US classification practice rather than their gun calibre. Later reorganisation and NATO harmonisation brought the frigate label into wider use.

Destroyer escort was an American classification choice, and a 3-inch main battery did not force the Buckley or Evarts class into a frigate category. Later reorganisation brought US terminology closer to NATO practice and also redesignated destroyer leaders as cruisers. Wartime operation of Commonwealth-built frigates complicates any blanket claim that the US Navy never used the label. A further counterfactual asks whether calling battlecruisers frigates would have encouraged earlier American construction. The proposed political appeal of that name is also used to imagine a separate frigate category in the Washington Treaty. Those consequences remain speculation about the influence of terminology.