Code name

A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. Codenames are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They are also used in business, for example as the names of confidential projects.

Tank code names

Just as the RAF required a name for its official designation of an aircraft, even when the supplier (the US, for example) did not supply one, so too did the British Army require a name for a tank. The M3 series of tanks were given the code names Grant and Lee by the latter, after the American Civil War generals. This is the origin of the later US habit of naming tanks after generals. The French have continued this with the Leclerc. For their own part, the British settled into a system of giving tanks names that begin with the letter C.

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