Quote Originally Posted by Jetfire in the sky View Post
I'm pretty sure the "official" names that most of us know planes by are designated by NATO.
Common English names for Russian/Chinese fighters are definitely assigned by NATO. Maybe it's changed, but I always thought the names were chosen by the manufacturer/client?

There doesn't seem to be a lot of hard information but US army helicopters, for example, are all named after Native American tribes, Republic had 'thunder', Lockheed have celestial objects (Galaxy, Constellation, Starfighter), McDonnell Douglas cargo planes were all 'master's. Of course, the US is such a big part of NATO that it wouldn't surprise me if they adopted the US names as standard.