Naval News editor Tayfun Özberk wrote names on his personal social media account.
The four frigates have been named TCG Akdeniz (F-519), TCG Karadeniz (F-520), TCG Ege (F-521), and TCG Marmara (F-522). This is an interesting decision as the ships of the first batch have been given the names of cities starting with the letter “İ”, hence gaining the name I-class (Sometimes İstif-class).Eight frigates will be built as the fifth to twelfth ships of the MİLGEM programme, with TF-2000 AAW destroyers (Names yet to be announced) to follow.
The second and third I-class frigates, TCG İzmir (F-516) and TCG İzmit (F-517), were launched in January 2025 by Anadolu Shipyard and Sedef Shipyard, respectively. The follow-up ships to TCG İstanbul (F-515) feature a taller array of MİDLAS VLS cells, suggesting the use of strike-length cells to accommodate larger missiles like SİPER Product 2 long-range air defence missile and possibly GEZGİN cruise missile in future.
