We have always named nuke subs after states.
The first ballistic missile nuclear subs (SSBN) were named after Revolutionary figures like Patrick Henry.
Before the Los Angeles class, nuclear attack subs were still named after fish like the previous conventional powered subs.
The first nuclear sub was the USS Nautilus (SSN-571). Sharing names with Captain Nemo’s fictional submarine in Jules Verne’s classic 1870 science fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and named after another USS Nautilus (SS-168) that served with distinction in World War II, the new atomic powered Nautilus was authorized in 1951, with laying down for construction in 1952 and launched in January 1954, attended by Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States, wife of 34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and commissioned the following September into the United States Navy. Final construction was completed in 1955.
Our third commissioned nuclear sub USS Skate (SSN-578) made it to the North Pole a week after the USS Nautilus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nautilus_(SSN-571)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Skate_(SSN-578)