Top 10 Secret Service Code Names

[Lady Macbeth]

Top 10 Secret Service Code Names
The new First Family's codenames have been revealed. How do they stack up against some of history's better monikers?

Renegade
President-elect Barack Obama

The Oval Office's next occupant opted for this moniker after being presented with a list of names beginning with the letter "R." As custom dictates, the rest of his family's code names will be alliterative: wife Michelle is known as "Renaissance;" daughters Malia and Sasha are "Radiance" and "Rosebud," respectively.

[Lady Macbeth]

Lancer
President John F. Kennedy

Kennedy's moniker meshed well with the "Camelot" theme of his Administration. It also works as a play on "Lancelot," King Arthur's notoriously womanizing knight.

[Lady Macbeth]

Searchlight
President Richard Nixon

For a chief executive undone by the late-night break-in at the Watergate Hotel, and the subsequent coverup, Nixon's Secret Service nickname — a device that reveals all — is deeply ironic.

[Lady Macbeth]

Deacon
President Jimmy Carter

The former Georgia governor, a devout Baptist, taught Sunday school even while occupying the Oval Office; his code-name was a fitting choice.

[Lady Macbeth]

Sunburn
Presidential candidate Ted Kennedy

As a presidential candidate in 1980, the Lion of the Senate (and pale, Irish-Catholic New Englander) had to suffer this code-name.

[Lady Macbeth]

Rawhide
President Ronald Reagan

For a president who once starred in Westerns, this moniker was a perfect fit.

[Lady Macbeth]

Halo
Pope John Paul 2nd

The Secret Service also protects foreign dignitaries on their visits to the United States. One needn't think too hard to determine the origins of the papal nickname.

[Lady Macbeth]

Smurfette
Karenna Gore, daughter of vice-president Al

An unfortunate choice perhaps, but Gore has nobody to blame but herself. Nineteen years old when her father became vice president in 1993, Karenna was told she could pick her own codename, as long as it had two syllables and started with an "s." Ever since, she wrote in 1997, "I have been cringing."

[Lady Macbeth]

Angler
Vice-President Dick Cheney

Though Cheney's codename no doubt derived from his love of fishing, it also aptly described the vice-president's knack for pressing his agenda behind the scenes. Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman liked the name enough to use it as the title for his book on the Cheney vice presidency.

[Lady Macbeth]

Parasol
Cindy McCain

Hailing from torrid Phoenix, the well-coiffed, delicate Mrs. McCain — who once required X-rays for an injury incurred by shaking hands with a supporter — seems like she could use some shade.