Because of Hall's role in the project, the F4C-1 was sometimes referred to as a Curtiss-Hall rather than a plain Curtiss. Hall soon left Curtiss and gained further fame as a builder of aluminum airframes. Although it was purely an experimental design, the F4C-1 did not carry an X-prefix because the USN did not identify experimentals as such until 1927.
The designation is a bit confusing. Although it was the first actual Curtiss fighter design for the USN under the new designation system, it was given the designation F4C because the earlier Curtiss racers, CR, R2C, and R3C, had equivalent fighter designations in their USN paperwork. The next Curtiss fighter design skipped the F5C designation and became F6C. This was because of the large number of wartime F-5L flying boats, some built by Curtiss, still in service under their original designations; the presence of two different F-5 mode1s in the inventory would have been confusing."