The Russian and Soviet Navy's ship naming conventions were similar to those of other nations.
A problem for the non-Russian reader is the need to transliterate the Cyrillic names into the Latin alphabet.
The Soviets assigned a project number to each new design.
The designs also had covernames, major ship classes were named after birds, e.g., Orlan = Sea eagle, Berkut = Golden eagle, Krechyet = Gyrfalcon.
Submarine designs were given fish names, e.g., Akula = Shark, Som = Catfish, etc.