How were Have Blue and Tacit Blue codenames chosen?

Or more remarkably, the P-40. The RAF called the small-jawed B & C
model the Tomahawk, the large-jawed D etc the Kittyhawk......

The USAAF and Curtiss then tried to play catchup by retroactively
naming all P-40 models as the Warhawk, which to seem has always seemed
to lack something.

I was a high school kid, aviation nut and prolific model-builder
during WW II.

My recollection is that *at that time*, the U.S. aviation and model
airplane mags called the small-jawed P-40s Tomahawks, the D (and
perhaps E) Kittyhawk, and the F and subsequent models Warhawk. How
long that continued, I don't know; I got out of school, enlisted, and
no longer saw the mags.

vince norris