During World War II it was customary to refer to planned military operations through the use of codenames in order to hide as much information as possible from the enemy. These names were chosen at random and were meant to have no connection at all with the plan they referred to. If a codename was chosen that somehow was related to the subject, a new one was chosen.

Codenames were used for Allied plans, operations, convoys, and important leaders. Here are some examples:

ACROBAT Proposed British advance into Tripolitania in 1941.
ACCOLADE Proposed British attack on the Dodecanese Islands, 1944.
AGENT The code referring to Winston Churchill.
ANAKIM First plan for the re-occupation of Burma.
ARGUMENT Air attack on German aircraft industry in February of 1944.
AVALANCHE Allied amphibious assault on Salerno, September, 1943.
BATTLEAXE British offensive in the Western Desert in late 1941.
BOLERO The build-up of American troops in Britain.
BRAID The code name given to General George Marshall.
BRIMSTONE Projected Allied invasion of Sardinia, 1944.
BULLFROG The attack plan for Akyab, Burma, in January, 1945.
BUTTRESS The assault on the toe of Italy t Reggio in 1943.
CARGO The code name for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
CATAPULT The British attack on the French fleets in harbors across North Africa in July, 1940.
CLARION Air attack on German communications, February, 1945.
COBRA The American break-out from the Normandy bridgehead, 1944.
COMPASS The British offensive against the Italians in Egypt.
CORONET The planned invasion of Japan, 1945.
CROMWELL The contingency plan to be put in effect in the event of German landings in Great Britain, 1940.
DEMON The British evacuation of Greece.
DIADEM The drive to capture Rome in 1944.
DRAGOON The invasion of southern France, 1944.
DYNAMO The evacuation of British forces from Dunkirk, starting in May, 1940.
FORTITUDE A completely fake operation, planned and leaked to the Germans to draw attention away from the Normandy landings in 1944.
GOODWOOD The British armored offensive west of Caen in July of 1944.
HABBAKUK A plan to build airfields on a giant iceberg and use it as a massive aircraft carrier.
HUSKY The Allied invasion of Sicily, July 3rd, 1943.
JUBILEE The codename for the ill-fated Dieppe Raid, August 19th, 1942.
LOOK The code referring to Dwight Eisenhower.
MANHATTAN The project to build an atomic bomb.
MINCEMEAT A deception plan, meant to divert attention from HUSKY.
ORANGE The pre-war American plans for war with Japan.
OVERLORD The Allied invasion of Northwest Europe.
PLUNDER The drive across the Rhine river and into Germany.
PRICELESS The overall plan for the invasion of Italy in 1943.
SATURN A planned incursion of Allied forces into Turkey, 1944.
SLAPSTICK The British landings in the heel of Italy, 1943.
TIDAL WAVE The air attacks on the Ploesti oil fields.
VARSITY The airborne component of the crossing of the Rhine in the spring of 1945.