Will the U.S. Navy change future Ford-class carrier name from USS Doris Miller to USS Donald Trump?.

The U.S. Navy is considering renaming its fourth Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, CVN-81, with USS Donald Trump emerging as a potential alternative to the current designation, USS Doris Miller, according to CNN. The potential name change coincides with a directive from the White House to produce a plan replacing the ship's planned Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with legacy steam catapults and hydraulic elevators. This dual review reflects ongoing evaluations of naval acquisition costs, industrial shipyard capacity, and fleet naming conventions ahead of the vessel's planned late-2026 keel-laying ceremony.

Procured in January 2019 alongside CVN-80 for $15.2 billion, the Ford-class carrier USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) faces construction delivery shifts to February 2034 due to shipyard footprint constraints at Newport News. Technical reconfigurations under review include swapping the $1.2 billion General Atomics EMALS contract for steam machinery and shifting the carrier's island 140 feet forward.

Read full defense news at this link: US Navy considers Ford-class aircraft carrier redesign to match Trump's WWII island style preference

The USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) is the fourth Ford-class carrier planned after the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78),  USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), and USS Enterprise (CVN-80). (Picture source: HII)

On August 20, 2026, CNN revealed that the U.S. Navy was considering renaming the fourth Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Doris Miller (CVN-81), with USS Donald Trump among the potential replacement names, although the Navy and Department of Defense have made no final naming decision. CVN-81 was procured with CVN-80 USS Enterprise in January 2019; first steel was cut on August 25, 2021; keel laying is planned before the end of 2026; and delivery has already moved to February 2034 because Newport News Shipbuilding lacks sufficient construction footprint to build modules at the originally planned rate. The Navy's FY2026 estimate placed CVN-81 procurement cost at $15.2 billion. The potential renaming coincides with a more consequential examination of the Ford-class carrier's configuration.

On August 13, Trump directed that a plan be produced within 60 days to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators planned for CVN-81 with steam catapults and hydraulic elevators. A separate examination concerns moving the island roughly 140 ft, or 42.7 m, forward from the Ford-class position toward the location characteristic of older carriers. At the same time, Cao's office has increasingly used CVN-81 rather than USS Doris Miller in internal references, and the August 13 presidential memorandum itself identified the ship as CVN-81. Removing the name would consequently reverse two carrier-naming firsts established six years earlier, during Trump's first administration: the first U.S. aircraft carrier named for an African American and the first named for an enlisted sailor. 

Born in Waco, Texas, on October 12, 1919, Doris Miller enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1939 and served as a mess attendant, one of the occupational categories to which Black sailors were largely restricted under the Navy's racial policies of the period. On December 7, 1941, he was aboard USS West Virginia (BB-48) at Pearl Harbor when Japanese aircraft attacked the Pacific Fleet. Because damage prevented Miller from reaching his normal battle station, he helped move wounded personnel, including the battleship's commanding officer, Capt. Mervyn S. Bennion, who had been mortally wounded by fragments from a bomb strike on the nearby USS Tennessee. Miller then operated a .50-caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun despite not having been formally trained as a gunner and continued firing until its ammunition was exhausted. Miller was officially credited with two, while other estimates have ranged from one to six.

Adm. Chester W. Nimitz personally presented Miller with the Navy Cross aboard USS Enterprise on May 27, 1942. He was the first African American awarded the Navy Cross, then, and now, the Navy's second-highest decoration for combat valor after the Medal of Honor, and he subsequently became the first Black sailor included in a national War Bond tour. Miller later served aboard the Casablanca-class escort carrier USS Liscome Bay (CVE-56). On November 24, 1943, during operations near Makin in the Gilbert Islands, Japanese submarine I-175 struck Liscome Bay with a torpedo that detonated the carrier's aircraft bomb magazine; Miller was among the sailors killed. His name first went to the Knox-class frigate USS Miller (FF-1091), commissioned on June 30, 1973. On January 20, 2020, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced that CVN-81 would be named USS Doris Miller.

A Ford-class carrier, such as CVN-81, is 332.8 m long, has a flight deck width of roughly 78 m, and displaces around 100,000 tonnes at full load. Propulsion comes from two Bechtel A1B nuclear reactors driving four shafts. The carrier has four aircraft catapults, three deck-edge aircraft elevators, and 11 Advanced Weapons Elevators, compared with four aircraft elevators on the Nimitz class. Its electrical plant was designed with substantially more generating capacity than the preceding class because electromagnetic launch, electromechanical arresting equipment, weapons elevators, sensors, and future directed-energy loads place electricity at the center of the ship's architecture. The Ford was also designed to reduce required manning by about 15% relative to the previous carrier generation.

CVN-80 and CVN-81 were bought together to save close to $4 billion by ordering common material, reducing duplicated engineering, maintaining supplier production, and avoiding workforce breaks between the two hulls. The USS Doris Miller's delivery schedule has already been moved from February 2032 to February 2034, due to physical congestion at Newport News, where CVN-80 modules and other carrier work consume the construction footprint needed for CVN-81. Moving a major system, such as the EMALS or the island, can propagate changes through adjacent compartments, while replacing an already contracted system can leave the government paying both termination or sunk costs on existing hardware and development, qualification, procurement, and installation costs for its replacement.

The USS Doris Miller was designed for four EMALS catapults, which use stored kinetic energy and solid-state electrical power conversion to accelerate aircraft rather than tapping reactor-generated steam. NAVAIR identifies more precise end-speed control, smoother acceleration, and the ability to launch aircraft across a wider weight range, from lightweight unmanned aircraft to heavy strike aircraft, among the system's principal differences from steam. Returning to steam therefore requires much more than exchanging the machinery immediately beneath four launch tracks. A steam installation needs high-pressure steam distribution from the propulsion plant toward the flight deck, accumulators, launch valves, cylinders, water brakes, control equipment and supporting machinery, together with the shielding, drainage, maintenance access and compartment volume associated with that equipment.

The Ford class was not laid out with the extensive catapult steam network of a Nimitz-class ship, so those requirements would have to be incorporated into an electrical carrier architecture after construction began. The industrial base would simultaneously have to restart manufacturing for new U.S. steam-catapult equipment after roughly two decades without a new carrier steam-catapult procurement. The government has already committed substantial money in the opposite direction. On June 7, 2023, the Navy awarded General Atomics a $1.204 billion modification covering production of the complete CVN-81 EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear shipsets, deliveries, engineering changes, obsolescence work, installation support and certification through 2032. By August 2026, work on that equipment was well advanced.

Similarly, the proposed 140-ft, or 42.7-m, forward movement of the USS Doris Miller's island creates a different engineering problem because the Ford flight deck was deliberately reorganized around the present aft position. Compared with the Nimitz class, Ford's island is about 30% smaller and located farther aft, increasing usable deck area ahead of the superstructure and changing how aircraft move between parking positions, fueling and arming locations, catapults, and the landing area. Ford also reduced the number of deck-edge aircraft elevators from four to three while installing 11 Advanced Weapons Elevators capable of moving weapons directly between magazines and flight-deck areas. The concept was to eliminate unnecessary aircraft and weapons movements rather than simply move more aircraft vertically.

Fueling points were integrated into the deck layout, weapons staging was reorganized, and parking locations were arranged so aircraft could be serviced with fewer crossings of the flight deck. These changes were designed against a quantitative requirement. The Nimitz-class benchmark is roughly 120 sorties during a 12-hour flying day and 240 during a 24-hour surge. Ford's original sustained objective was 160 sorties in 12 hours, 40 more than Nimitz and a 33.3% increase, with the class also designed around a 270-sortie 24-hour surge objective, 30 more sorties and a 12.5% increase over the 240-sortie Nimitz figure. The February 2026 test subsequently produced 120% to 130% of the Nimitz sortie rate, placing Ford's demonstrated test performance broadly in the range for which the redesigned deck was intended.

Even a small increase in recovery interval matters when repeated over dozens of landings, as an additional five seconds applied to 120 recoveries represents ten minutes of additional recovery-cycle time before accounting for wave-offs, bolters, or deck repositioning. Schedule effects extend beyond the USS Doris Miller because the carrier is part of the retirement of ten Nimitz-class ships commissioned between 1975 and 2009. USS Nimitz (CVN-68), commissioned in 1975, has already crossed the 50-year point, and each subsequent retirement creates a new pressure for a Ford-class replacement if the Navy is to maintain an 11-carrier force. A two-year CVN-81 delay therefore cannot automatically be absorbed by extending the predecessor indefinitely.

Nuclear refueling history, reactor life, hull fatigue, catapult and arresting-gear condition, maintenance requirements, and the cost of keeping a five-decade-old carrier operational all affect whether an additional service-life extension is practical. At the same time, Newport News is the only U.S. shipyard that constructs nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and performs their Refueling and Complex Overhaul, so carrier construction and major carrier maintenance draw on overlapping engineering, nuclear-qualified labor and facilities. The wider naval nuclear industrial base is simultaneously trying to increase Virginia-class attack submarine production, deliver the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program, and support AUKUS at a time when U.S. public shipyards face substantial submarine-maintenance backlogs. CVN-81 redesign therefore has a measurable opportunity cost even if the additional engineering can technically be completed.

Every naval architect, nuclear engineer, electrician, pipefitter, planner, and supplier reassigned to carrier redesign is capacity unavailable elsewhere unless the industrial workforce expands correspondingly. The comparison with future foreign aircraft carriers also matters because electromagnetic launch is no longer exclusively an American technology path. China's Fujian uses electromagnetic catapults and is being developed around a carrier air wing that includes catapult-capable J-15T fighters, the J-35 stealth fighter, and KJ-600 airborne early-warning aircraft. France has selected General Atomics' EMALS and AAG for the PA-NG, the nuclear-powered successor to Charles de Gaulle expected to enter service around 2038. A U.S. decision to end domestic EMALS installation after CVN-80 would therefore occur while China is fielding electromagnetic launch and France is preparing to adopt the American system.

The industrial consequence is important because production quantity affects supplier retention, component cost, and engineering continuity. If CVN-81 and later U.S. carriers abandon EMALS, General Atomics and its suppliers would lose the principal recurring domestic carrier market for a system in which the Navy has already invested billions of dollars. The central acquisition question is consequently whether Trump's proposed changes about steam catapults, hydraulic weapons elevators, or a forward island exceed the combined value of already purchased equipment, redesign expenditure, supplier restart costs, shipyard rework, and any additional months or years added to a carrier already delayed from 2032 to 2034. Still, there has never been a single continuous U.S. rule requiring aircraft carriers to bear presidential names. The naming history began with USS Langley (CV-1), commissioned on March 20, 1922, and named for aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley.

The next two carriers, USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Saratoga (CV-3), inherited names associated with Revolutionary War battles and earlier U.S. warships, while USS Ranger (CV-4) continued a historic naval name. The fleet carriers that followed reinforced the battle and historic ship convention: Yorktown, Enterprise, Wasp and Hornet before and during the opening of World War II, followed by Essex-class names including Essex, Intrepid, Franklin, Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga. Wartime losses also led the Navy to recycle carrier names quickly. CV-16, originally intended to become Cabot, was renamed Lexington after CV-2 was lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea, while CV-10 became the second Yorktown after CV-5 was lost at Midway. Presidential commemoration emerged alongside rather than immediately replacing those traditions. CV-42 was renamed USS Franklin D. Roosevelt after Roosevelt's death in 1945.

USS Forrestal (CV-59), commissioned in 1955, honored James Forrestal, the first U.S. Secretary of Defense and a former Secretary of the Navy. USS Kitty Hawk, USS Constellation, USS America, and USS John F. Kennedy demonstrate how battle locations, historic names, national concepts, and presidents continued to coexist during the supercarrier era. The first nuclear carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), commissioned in 1961, again used a historic Navy name. USS Nimitz (CVN-68) honored Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, while USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) honored a congressman rather than a president. Presidential naming became dominant during the Nimitz program, but it never became exclusive. USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) again commemorated a senator, and the Ford-class subsequently combined presidential and non-presidential names through Gerald R. Ford, John F. Kennedy, Enterprise, and Doris Miller.

The historical pattern is therefore better understood as an evolution from battles and inherited Navy names toward individual national figures, with presidents becoming predominant as the nuclear carrier became the Navy's most prominent individual warship. CVN-81's 2020 name did not violate a fixed convention, while extending individual commemoration for the first time to an enlisted sailor. Presidential names nevertheless dominate the current nuclear carrier force. Seven of the ten Nimitz-class ships honor presidents: USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), USS George Washington (CVN-73), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) and USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77). The three exceptions are USS Nimitz (CVN-68), USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), and USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74).

The Ford-class continues the presidential concentration but also preserves two non-presidential cases among its first four hulls: USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), USS Enterprise (CVN-80) and, under the existing designation, USS Doris Miller (CVN-81). In January 2025, President Joe Biden announced the names USS William J. Clinton for CVN-82 and USS George W. Bush for CVN-83, meaning four of the first six named Ford-class carriers commemorate presidents, one preserves the Enterprise lineage, and one honors Miller. Naming a carrier for a living person would not itself create a precedent. Rep. Carl Vinson was alive when CVN-70 was named for him; Sen. John C. Stennis was alive when CVN-74 received his name; Ronald Reagan was alive when CVN-76 was named in 1995; and George H.W. Bush was alive when the CVN-77 name was announced in 2002.

The important distinction is presidential incumbency. Reagan left office in January 1989, six years before CVN-76 received his name, while George H.W. Bush left office in January 1993, nine years before the CVN-77 naming decision. No U.S. aircraft carrier has been named for the sitting president who controlled the executive branch when the name was selected. A USS Donald Trump designation made while Trump remains president would therefore create that specific precedent, not merely another example of a living namesake. It would also be a reversal within Trump's own administrations: Acting Secretary Thomas Modly assigned Doris Miller's name to CVN-81 on January 20, 2020, during Trump's first term, while a second Trump administration would remove it before keel laying.

The numerical effect on the Ford-class naming pattern would be straightforward. Five of the first six named Ford-class carriers would then commemorate presidents, with Enterprise as the sole exception, instead of the current four presidential names, one historic Navy name, and one enlisted sailor. The decision over CVN-81 therefore combines an unusually specific naming precedent with a potentially much larger acquisition precedent: the same carrier could become both the first named for a sitting U.S. president and the first Ford-class hull deliberately redesigned to return to steam catapults and hydraulic weapons handling after three ships were built around electromagnetic launch and an increasingly electrical aviation architecture.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

Explore More Defense News

• Land Defense News
• Naval Defense News
• Defense Aerospace News