For World War 2 we relied on the British to name things (The US produced the M4 Medium Tank, the Brits called it the "Sherman"). The theory was they were gover

For World War 2 we relied on the British to name things (The US produced the M4 Medium Tank, the Brits called it the "Sherman"). The theory was they were government designed and (at least theoretically) produced by many companies. I believe the Cold War names mostly came from US contractors- the government defined requirements ("air superiority fighter") and the contractors came up with designs that then had to be marketed against each other so they were given cool names ("Fighting Falcon"). Now there has been a lot of consolidation of contractors, and budgets are much more constrained. You no longer have the DoD funding competing designs and selecting, but a situation closer to early WW2 where the government is closer to the design. At least that's my 5 minute guess, probably lots of 'citation needed' to be done.