There's Nothing But Ghost's here sir... Yes there are alot of them around these days- Ibram Gaunt

The Tanith First and Only are also known as Gaunt's Ghosts, as nicknamed by Hlaine "Mad Larkin" Larkin, the Tanith Master Sniper. This nickname originally came about as a result of the name of their commanding officer, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, and the disenfranchised status of the original Tanith soldiers after their homeworld was destroyed. It has proved to be a nickname of some further application, as the Verghastite personnel influx into the regiment also considered themselves 'ghosts' due to the destruction of their home city, and the regiment as a whole is noted for its stealth and reconnaissance abilities being almost uncanny in nature.

Originally, there were three Tanith regiments raised for the Imperial Guard: the Tanith 1st, 2nd and 3rd - 6,000 men and a small number of vehicles and artillery pieces. When Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt is sent to Tanith to oversee the founding of these regiments, he is not impressed by the appearance of the men, initially describing them as "a scrawny, scruffy mob of soft-voiced woodsmen". His opinion of them changes quickly after seeing them in combat. He impatiently orders the regiments to begin boarding the carriers that will take them to the troop ships waiting to ferry them to their first warzones - a fortunate move which gets enough men off-world before the Chaos fleet strikes Tanith the same night. He confirms after leaving Tanith that this salvages three and a half thousand men and the majority of their equipment. It is unclear which regiments actually were saved from the fires of Tanith, but the remaining men are formed into the Tanith First, which is soon named the "Tanith First-and-Only". On the regiment's first battlefield on Blackshard, Hlaine Larkin coins the nickname "Gaunt's Ghosts". The term Ghosts has two meanings: the first is that Corbec tells Gaunt that his decision to abandon Tanith "made ghosts of them, hollow echoes". The second is that because of their exceptional stealth and scouting skills, they are ghost-like on the battlefield. The Tanith First excels at recon work as the Tanith never get lost, and using camo-cloaks they can move quickly and stealthily through terrain.

The Ghosts' eventually garnered a strong reputation after a number of actions, in particular the defences of Vervunhive, the Beati's Shrine on Hagia and her apparent person on Herodor. Unfortunately, this success did not come without its drawbacks and the Ghosts suffered heavy casualties on a number of occasions. However, two large personnel intakes during the regiment's history (one from the citizenry of Vervunhive, the other from the folding in of the 81st Belladon Recon regiment) managed to offset these losses.