History buff, retired Navy Chief, all in one!!
The following link provides an excellent discussion on US Navy ship type abbreviations and provides links to a great many of those same ships.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/shusn-no/usnsh-no.htm
BTW, the reason Aircraft Carriers have “C” in their abbreviation has nothing to do with being a “Carrier” but instead is rooted to the fact that the very first US Navy Aircraft Carrier, USS Langley, was converted from “Collier #3”, the second one, USS Lexington, was orginally planned as a Battle Cruiser “CC-1” before being converted during construction to “CV-2” and the third one was also orginally planned as s Battle Cruiser, “CC-3” before being converted during construction to “CV-3”. The “V” designator was already being used to identify aircraft squadrons on fleet asset lists so it seems to have been brought over to the “CV” class to indicate the ship was a Cruiser hull converted to carry aircraft. I have always wondered if we would have BVs instead of CVs if the first conversions had been based on battleship hulls. To my knowledge the nation to convert a battleship to an aircraft carrier was Japan with the Shinano.
Battle Cruiser hulls CC-2, 4, 5 and 6 were cancelled during construction but their names might be familiar. USS Constellation, USS Ranger and USS United States all became names assigned to the carrier fleet but the USS United States (CVA-58) was cancelled five days after construction started in favor of instead build a bunch of B-36 bombers.
You might also be interested in learning that the USS Maine of “Remember the Maine” fame never had a BB number assigned to her although she is considered to be the second battleship ever built by the US Navy, the USS Texas being the first. BB-1 is the USS Indiana even though she is the third battleship built by the United States.
Confused yet?
Try the submarine group. The first submarine build for the United States was the “Plunger” but SS-1 was the USS Holland while SS-2 was the USS Plunger. Of course it was not the same Plunger. Then we have SS-105, the “USS S-1”. Such an original name. Mind the “S” was not for “submarine”. It was the next letter after “R” since we had already built submarines of classes A, C, B, D, G, F, E, H, K, L, M, AA, N, T, and O.
Of course, my first most favorite submarine is the USS Trutta, SS-421. I still remember visiting my dad when he was the engineering officer on her. My second most favorite submarine is the USS San Francisco, SSN-711. She only got onto my favorite list after my four years of service on her were over.