For the first contact ship I think of explorers and diplomats- maybe Magellan, Cabot, Lewis & Clark, Sacagaewa etc?
For the engineering ship I think of builders and inventors: Edison, Tesla, Henry Ford, von Braun, Bill Gates.
Maybe something mythical: John Henry or Paul Bunyon?
And those are pretty American, I'm sure someone else could come up with more non-American sort of names.
I dunno just my two cents.