Yeah, ship numbering is probably arbitrary.

It's times like this that I feel bad for Naka. Whoever ends up with the number 48 will end up being a gag character. She pretty much just drew the short straw.

Heh, how do you determine "birth order" when they have multiple dates to reference... Tatsuta starts construction later, but is launched earlier... Maybe that's why she seems so much more like the older sister of the two? She just matured faster?

Ironbottom said:

It's times like this that I feel bad for Naka. Whoever ends up with the number 48 will end up being a gag character. She pretty much just drew the short straw.

On the other hand, was there much else that would have made her famous? She could have been Yura or Kinu, instead, who have no particular gags, and hence nobody knows who they are... Jintsuu is famous pretty much for just being Sendai and Naka's more level-headed and retiring sister.

I seem to recall that was by when the ship was ordered.

Just a note on the translation of dates, Freddy used dates from the Japanese Wikipedia which can differ from the ones on the English Wikipedia substantially.