Well, the Royal Navy had "tribal class" destroyers, of which I remember only the HMS Ashanti, and perhaps the Pathan. Whether the eponymous "tribes" appreciated the tributes, I never heard.

The US Navy has some well-understood conventions, including leading-class warships (one battleships, now nuclear submarines) named after states, aircraft carriers named after earlier warships (Enterprise, Wasp) or battles (Yorktown, Saratoga).