Great or curious sports names & nicknames

[Cesar Rodriguez]

NBA player Travis Outlaw - A gunslinger or a country music artist perhaps?


Indiana freshman "Yogi" Ferrell - SNL meets Hanna-Barbera.

Retired rugby player Austin Healey - now what strange soul with the surname Healey would name their son after a car?

[ursus arctos]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

[ursus arctos]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

There's also Barkevious Mingo:



He won the 2009 Name of the Year, an OTF favourite championed by Inca, and is expected to go high in next year's NFL draft.

[Incandenza]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

There was a category of college football player names on a recent Jeopardy. Hugs Etienne (Wisconsin) and Godspower Offor (Wake Forest) were mentioned, as well as Wave Ryder...who plays for Navy.

[Janik]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

El Tel wrote: Retired rugby player Austin Healey - now what strange soul with the surname Healey would name their son after a car?

The stadium announcer at Welford Road mused on that once when going through the teams, back when Healey was still an Orrell player. Something along the lines of "Odd name that... I wonder where his parents where when he was conceived?"

[Wyatt Earp]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Orel Hershiser. That's a great name.

[Janik]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

There is Sir'Dominic Pointer from college basketball.

It's going to take something special to displace my personal favourites, both from Indian cricket; Farouk Engineer and Nari Contractor. They just about overlapped in terms of international careers, and given that Contractor was the captain must have played together.
Durham have recently fielded teams that included Phil Mustard and Graham Onions. Close, but no cigar. Even with Mustard being a wicket keeper, leading to dismissals of caught Mustard bowled Onions.

Thinking of food, one would have to go some to beat the translation of Jan Suchopárek's name. sucho - dry, párek - frankfurter. That is Mr Dryfrankfurter to you, sir.

[Janik]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Peter Winterbottom

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Janik wrote: Durham have recently fielded teams that included Phil Mustard and Graham Onions. Close, but no cigar. Even with Mustard being a wicket keeper, leading to dismissals of caught Mustard bowled Onions.

I bet they relished the opportunity of playing together, badoom tishhhh.

Then of course theres this guy, World B Free:

[multipleman78]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

my favourite sporting nickname is the name bestowed upon Michael Holding. WHISPERING DEATH.

[ad hoc]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Janik wrote:
It's going to take something special to displace my personal favourites, both from Indian cricket; Farouk Engineer and Nari Contractor. They just about overlapped in terms of international careers, and given that Contractor was the captain must have played together.

English surnames (and indeed most languages) are peppered with jobs - Taylors, Smiths, Carpenters etc - but these two sound weird to our ears. Is that because these jobs are more modern? And is there anywhere that new jobs get made into names. Derek ITConsultant? Colin Barista? etc?

[Sits]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

A great name, and a great nickname all in one.

Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, the Tashkent Terror:

[Antepli Ejderha]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Wasn't he the Tashkent Express?

[Sits]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Maybe he was both! I thought I remembered Phil Liggett on SBS referring to him as "The Tashkent Terror" but brain cells start dying from 21 so I could easily be wrong.

[Cal Alamein]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

d'brickashaw ferguson has to be one the most impressive made up name in sports.

Lineman for the NY Jets.

[Sits]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Cal Alamein wrote: d'brickashaw ferguson has to be one the most impressive made up name in sports.

Lineman for the NY Jets.

Along with Metta World Peace of the Lakers, obviously.

[Cal Alamein]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Ron Artest is an utter dickhead. Copied World B. Free. Artest has some serious skill, but is a thug and the world peace bit is a good laugh.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

El Tel wrote:


Indiana freshman "Yogi" Ferrell - SNL meets Hanna-Barbera.

I take it you're not very familiar with Sottish football...


Yogi Hughes Mk I


Yogi Hughes Mk II

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Pfffft, not even original.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

Of course. Facepalm and all that.

[Sam]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

I assume that pic from El Tel is Yogi Berra?

I've always found southern African footballers to be a fantastic source of names. Just taking as our starting point the Wikipedia Category page for South African players, we have:

Tonic Chabalala
Doctor Khumalo, whose real name is arguably even better; Theophilus Doctorson Khumalo
Pollen Ndlanya (maybe he gets up defenders' noses?
Boy-Boy Mosia
Excellent Walaza
my long-time favourite, Surprise Moriri
and Two-Boys Gumede, who was named that because he was the second-born son in his family, and his mother told people she now had 'two boys'.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Great or curious sports names & nicknames

As Sam knows well, Argentina is also a gold mine (as is Uruguay). Over there it's almost compulsory to have a nickname and they are usually mock-offensive, frequently targetting physical flaws. Nicknames related to ethnic origin are also common, but it's important that they're as inexact as possible in order to make them offensive:

'But I'm not Russian - I'm Croatian'
'Russian it is and that's the last word'

If you're really cool you might get one that's not offensive.

Some examples:

"Fluff" Maradona
"Louse" (Gustavo) López
"Dummy" Gallardo
"Cholo" (Indian) Simeone
"Gardener" Cruz
"Little Donkey" Ortega
"Flea" Messi
"Witch" Berti
"Prince" Francescoli
"Onion" Rodríguez
"Beak" Higuain
"Beak" Gancedo
"Apache" Tévez
"Matador" Kempes
"Valdanito" (after Jorge Valdano) Crespo
"Marshall" Milito
"Kaiser" Passarella
"Mouse" Ayala
"Duck" Abbondanzieri
"Red" McAllister
"Gringo" Heinze
"Hen"(Maxi)López
"Rabbit" Saviola
"Madman" Palermo
"Madman" Gatti
"Clown" Aymar
"Egg" Toresani
"Litle Mouth" Sensini
"Onion" Rodríguez
"Big Head" D'Alessandro
"Basque" Arruabarrena
"Russian" Hrabina
"Turk" Hussein
"Satan" Paez
"Lettuce" Roa
"Eel" Gutiérrez
"Devil" Montserrat
"Bull" Acuña
"The Wall" Samuel
"Monkey" Navarro Montoya
"Monkey" Burgos
"Rifle" Pandiani
"Commander" González
"Vitamin" Sánchez
"Dog" Arbarello
"Bone" Galetti
"Pigeon" Redondo
"Little Plane" Rambert
"Black" (Indian) Gamboa
"Little Boss" Mascherano
"Red" Lussenhoff
"Black" (Indian) Ibarra
"Gallego" Vázquez
"Gallego" Pérez

Etc.