Eight ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Hornet, after the stinging insect.

• The first Hornet was a ten-gun sloop commissioned in 1775, and served in the American Revolutionary War. The first two ships in the new Continental Navy were Hornet and Wasp.
• The second Hornet was also a ten-gun sloop and took part in the First Barbary War. In company with two other American ships, she attacked the port of Derna and silenced its guns in a battle lasting less than an hour. This allowed a combined force of about 400 American Marines and Arab, Greek and Berber mercenaries who had made a gruelling 400 mile overland march to capture the city - an event immortalized in the Marine Hymn "To the shores of Tripoli".
• The third Hornet was a brig-rigged sloop of war was launched on 28 July 1805 in Baltimore and commissioned on 18 October. Hornet sank in a storm off Tampico, Mexico on 29 September, 1829 with the loss of all on board.
• The fourth Hornet was a five gun schooner used as a dispatch vessel between 1813 and 1820.
• The fifth Hornet, the first to be steam propelled, was an iron, side-wheeled steamer.
• The sixth Hornet , a converted yacht, was a dispatch vessel in the Spanish-American War.
• The seventh Hornet (CV-8) launched the Doolittle Raid in 1942 along with Enterprise, fought at the battle of Midway, and was sunk at the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942.
• The eighth Hornet (CV/CVA/CVS-12) was originally named Kearsarge, but renamed in honor of CV-8 and active through the rest of World War II. She later recovered both Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 crews, and is preserved as a museum ship in Alameda, California.

The F/A-18 strike fighter carries on the name Hornet in the Navy.