I have heard the name change was driven by our former Prime Minister, you know, the one who couldn't organise a referendum, as he didn't feel it would go across well if he announced we were buying drones with too aggressive a name. It's a bit odd as we stopped giving foreign military equipment a different name in WW2 as we found it just got confusing trying to order spares etc. Hence we named the Wildcat the Martlet and the Avenger the Tarpon for a bit until sanity prevailed.
There was a slight logic to the renaming as the UK had a policy with naval fighters being named after birds, naval bombers after game fish, land fighters being named after meteorological phenomena etc. I mean there probably is still a policy we just don't make enough for it to be noticeable now.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
