I have a tendency to name ships after people or places of interest to me. For instance, I have gone through five U.S.S. Adelbert Ameses (the first two were Miranda-kitbashes, the third was an Akira, the fourth a Prometheus and the fifth a Galaxy; the sixth will be the Odyssey), and am on my second U.S.S. Benjamin Butler (the first was a kitbash of the Constitution refit and its associates, the current is an Excelsior). My other ships include:
-U.S.S. Crowninshield (VA Defiant, named for the Boston Brahmin family I'm descended from)
-U.S.S. Lowell (Galaxy Dreadnought, the Massachusetts city I live in - and Butler and Ames are buried in)
-U.S.S. Redwall (Sovereign, for Brian Jacques' book series)
-U.S.S. Bernadotte (VA Galaxy, named for Folke Bernadotte, World War II Swedish diplomat and relative of the Swedish Royal Family)
-U.S.S. Tuolumne (runabout, keeping in the tradition of naming for rivers - in this case, a river that runs through Yosemite in my native California)
-U.S.S. Sarah Hildreth (captain's yacht, Benjamin Butler's wife)