Captain Haddock Hergé thought this was a perfect name for Tintin’s new mariner friend, and so Captain Haddock was born. There was a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain Herbert Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel "Olympic". He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship "Titanic" before "Titanic" was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage. Another famous namesake, and a possible inspiration for the Captain's ancestor Sir Francis, was the English admiral Richard Haddock, a veteran of
Nicholas Haddock of Barcelona in 1706. On 6 April 1707 he was promoted to the rank of captain and placed in command of the 42-gun fifth-rate HMS "Ludlow Castle". England was at war with France, and Haddock's orders were to hunt for enemy privateers. On 30 December he brought "Ludlow Castle" into range with two such vessels, "Nightingale" and "Squirrel", both former English merchantmen captured and refitted by the French. Haddock ordered that "Ludlow Castle" give chase, and was rewarded with the capture of "Nightingale". This vessel, Haddock's first prize ship, was returned to England along with her crew. Haddock was also