The Dardanelles started out life as a stock Talbot Yards Gemini17 light freighter with the ignoble name of Ore Tumbler. Eventually, a freelance crimelord, Adrian LeMarque, came into possession of it and set about modifying it. He changed its name to Wanton Wench, which by most appraisals, wasn't an improvement. By the time Dmitri Yen and Saya Frost used it to "escape from a recon mission gone very wrong" (at least according to the official story), it had been outfitted as a luxury apartment in space with plenty of touches to make any smuggler happy. Dmitri decided to keep it after the mission and rechristened her the Dardanelles.
From Matt:
No shit, there I was, building Dmitri Yen's character page on here. I got to the section about ships, and only listing the Moskva felt wrong somehow. My brain spat out the name Dardanelles and I pretty much just mentally shrugged and typed it in. At the time, I had no idea what it was, how and why Dmitri had acquired it, or anything.
I built her later that day, and I gotta say, I'm pretty pleased that Dmitri and Saya have such a quality ride when they need to get away from the Moskva.