Why did they have females on the front? Why were they often named for females?
Hi there, I answered another question here recently that indirectly dealt with this same topic.
The females on the front of the ship were known as the ship's figurehead and were meant to embody the spirit of the vessel. Women were believed to be better navigators than men and female nudity was believed to tame the wild sea gods who might sink or damage the vessel. Thus, figureheads were often fully or partially nude with wide open eyes to guide the ship safely to her destination. With this in mind, ships were then often named for famous or mythical women, or even if they weren't but were instead named after some abstract concept, virtue, or feeling, they still usually carried a female figurehead for this reason, but also, likely because such concepts have often been personified as women throughout history as well.
Is this also why almost all modes of transportation now are referred to as "she"? I'm sure there's no way to tell for sure, but I would think so. I find it interesting since modern vehicles don't have a history of using a female figurehead.
Firstly, they didn't always have females as figureheads, indeed, I'm not sure that female figureheads would even be in the majority. Ships were, and are, named after many things, and only occasionally after females. Most English language maritime terminology is derived from the French, and from Latin. Romance and other languages have genders, which English doesn't, so English simply follows the French, despite ship in French being Le! A French sailor would refer to his ship as "she", as does an English sailor.