Can anyone take a moment and try to outline how armor was named in WWII? Does it carry over to modern armor?
Do you mean like US names, Sherman, Grant, Lee, Stuart, etc.?
If so, the British named our tanks for us using US Civil War generals. The US simply referred to them by model number, as in M3, M4, etc.
The US eventually adopted the British tradition of naming US tanks after Civil War generals during WW2. They changed the tradition to include other generals. This began with the WW2 tanks M24 Chaffee (father or the US Armored Corps) and the M26 Pershing (WW1 US forces commander).
Other non-Civil War generals were the Patton, Walker, Abrams and Bradley. The Vietnam era Sheridan received a Civil War name.
Recently, the US Army decided to name the tanks after enlisted men starting with the Sgt. York (cancelled project) and currently the Stryker (named after two Medal of Honor winners).
US Engineer equipment has recently begun an animal name theme. Among the names are the Grizzly, Wolverine and Panther (M60 or Abrams based mine roller).
The Germans used a convoluted, confusing, and over-engineered method.
PzKpfw - Panzer kampfwagen, with a Roman numeral type designator, I-VI
Ausf - Ausfuhrung - denoted variant, using letters Ausf A, Ausf D, etc.
SdKfz - Sonderkraftfahrzeug - Special purpose vehicle - even tanks got this designation.
And of course, some got names, Tiger, Panther, Luchs, etc…
So…a Tiger I would end up being a Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf E, SdKfz 181.
If you really want confusion, start getting into specialty vehicles. They have terms for all sorts of unique vehicles.
In the 1985 May/June issue of FSM, is an article by Bruce Culver on German armor terms, I highly recommend it if you want to even remotely try to understand German vehicle terminology. I know its an old back issue, but it’s still out there! 
Jeff
This was their way around the arms limitations imposed by theTreaty of Versailles. They were not developing tanks or weapons of war, on paper they were “special purpose vehicles”.
For the russians, i believe that they had T then a number. The number denoted the year development started…
howd they come up with tiger n panther tho? wut, jst pick a ferocious and manly sounding name?
Well, the first thing they’d do is make sure there was at least one VOWEL in the name before they picked it. [;)]
Jeff