The story behind how LimaCharlie got it's name

There have been a surprising number of requests for us to relate the story behind the name LimaCharlie and what it means. One would think that the name was simply derived from the NATO phonetic alphabet shortcut for ‘loud and clear’, and they would generally be correct; however, like most things there is more to the story than meets the eye.

LimaCharlie exists in this strange Venn diagram-like intersection where idealistic software engineers with a background in open source created this really powerful commercialized technology that supports data security and the professionals behind the scenes. Within this landscape, LimaCharlie as a tip o’ the hat to the military-like call response, ‘loud and clear’ makes perfect sense. A big part of our guiding philosophy is to expose the internals and communicate clearly.

Now what if I told you that LimaCharlie as a name for the Security Infrastructure as a Service provider just happened to line up nicely with those core philosophies and that the source of inspiration was much more accidental?

When LimaCharlie as a concept was just starting to form in the mind of Maxime Lamothe-Brassard, he was living in the south of France and often worked out of the LC Cafe. It was such a warm and productive moment in his life that he named his project LimaCharlie - in part - as a tribute to the owners of that cafe for being such great hosts during that period. True story.