First Family Secret Service Code Names Revealed

All eyes are still on the First Family.

So it goes without saying that security is of the utmost importance, and it is up to the U.S. Secret Service to ensure that the President, the First Lady and their children move from place to place and return without incident.

For nearly 80 years, the agency has given U.S. presidents and their families nicknames that, in theory, embody their personalities. While the Secret Service began using codes in 1945 for security reasons, when electronic communications could not be encrypted, they are still used today for clarity.

“Over time, the protégés almost adopted the persona of whatever call sign they had chosen,” said a former Secret Service special agent. Jonathan Wackrow said CNN in 2020. “With former president Barack Obama“Renegade” is a great example of that: how he went against the establishment in some of the things he did, and like Barbara Bushwhose call sign was “Tranquility”, embodied tranquility and peace in times of war.

This year, the agency theoretically does not need to propose new names, says the president-elect Donald Trump already bearing a nickname from his first administration before his Jan. 20 swearing-in as the 47th president of the United States — four years after losing his 2020 re-election bid to the now-incumbent president Joe Biden.