Military Nicknames

One thing that I've noticed is that there seems to be a lack of nicknames used by the military in the Honorverse. Historically, military commanders always seem to garner sobriquets (not always flattering) from their men and/or the press. To site a few examples from WWII American commanders- "Blood 'n' Guts" Patton, "Bull" Halsey, "Dugout Doug" MacArthur, "Close-In" Connelly, "Chesty" Puller, and (my favorite) "Howlin' Mad" Smith. So how come we only have "The Salamander" Harrington and "Admiral Cluster-Bomb" McQueen? You'd think the for all the times Tourville has been referred to as a cowboy, someone would've gone ahead and called him "Cowboy" Tourville! Or "Beauty" Tremaine and "The Beast" Harkness!


Anyway, if we were nominating nicknames for people, I'd put in Allen "Hard Luck" Higgens.

CmdrAthenaAprilist wrote:One thing that I've noticed is that there seems to be a lack of nicknames used by the military in the Honorverse. Historically, military commanders always seem to garner sobriquets (not always flattering) from their men and/or the press. To site a few examples from WWII American commanders- "Blood 'n' Guts" Patton, "Bull" Halsey, "Dugout Doug" MacArthur, "Close-In" Connelly, "Chesty" Puller, and (my favorite) "Howlin' Mad" Smith. So how come we only have "The Salamander" Harrington and "Admiral Cluster-Bomb" McQueen? You'd think the for all the times Tourville has been referred to as a cowboy, someone would've gone ahead and called him "Cowboy" Tourville! Or "Beauty" Tremaine and "The Beast" Harkness!


Anyway, if we were nominating nicknames for people, I'd put in Allen "Hard Luck" Higgens.

How about Jackass Janacek. Or maybe Hamish "the Hammer" Alexander.

I'd hazard a guess based on the fact that most of the military nicknames that we are all accustomed to are mostly American. In the US military, nicknames are a norm. "Maggot" being my favorite from day one in bootcamp. In a monarchy amongst titles and protocols, I wouldn't think disrespectful nicknames would catch on. Heck, nicknames for the ships were sorta frowned upon and had to be enjoyed in secret, like the Nasty Kitty.

-Shannon "Sleeping Beauty" Foraker (until unsafely awakened by the Committee of Public Safety)

-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

Anyways, let's not forget that Honor wore lots of hats and bore lots of titles, even in the nickname arena. She was a baseborn bitch to some. And the "boogeyman" to the Havenites.

cthia wrote:I'd hazard a guess based on the fact that most of the military nicknames that we are all accustomed to are mostly American. In the US military, nicknames are a norm. "Maggot" being my favorite from day one in bootcamp. In a monarchy amongst titles and protocols, I wouldn't think disrespectful nicknames would catch on. Heck, nicknames for the ships were sorta frowned upon and had to be enjoyed in secret, like the Nasty Kitty.

-Shannon "Sleeping Beauty" Foraker (until unsafely awakened by the Committee of Public Safety)

-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

Anyways, let's not forget that Honor wore lots of hats and bore lots of titles, even in the nickname arena. She was a baseborn bitch to some. And the "boogeyman" to the Havenites.

A lot of ships have unofficial nicknames, some affectionate and others not so much. Some of the nicknames were officially recognized.

USS Enterprise both unofficially and official as Big E
USS New Jersey Big J or somewhat derisively Jersey Girl
USS Missouri Mighty Mo
USS Constellation Connie and Constipation
USS Cowpens Mighty Moo
USS Valley Forge Valley Girl
USS Wichita Wicked Witch
USS Pensacola Sweet Pea
USS Intrepid Evil Eye

cthia wrote:-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

I seem to remember hers as "Horrible"

saber964 wrote:

cthia wrote:I'd hazard a guess based on the fact that most of the military nicknames that we are all accustomed to are mostly American. In the US military, nicknames are a norm. "Maggot" being my favorite from day one in bootcamp. In a monarchy amongst titles and protocols, I wouldn't think disrespectful nicknames would catch on. Heck, nicknames for the ships were sorta frowned upon and had to be enjoyed in secret, like the Nasty Kitty.

-Shannon "Sleeping Beauty" Foraker (until unsafely awakened by the Committee of Public Safety)

-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

Anyways, let's not forget that Honor wore lots of hats and bore lots of titles, even in the nickname arena. She was a baseborn bitch to some. And the "boogeyman" to the Havenites.

A lot of ships have unofficial nicknames, some affectionate and others not so much. Some of the nicknames were officially recognized.

USS Enterprise both unofficially and official as Big E
USS New Jersey Big J or somewhat derisively Jersey Girl
USS Missouri Mighty Mo
USS Constellation Connie and Constipation
USS Cowpens Mighty Moo
USS Valley Forge Valley Girl
USS Wichita Wicked Witch
USS Pensacola Sweet Pea
USS Intrepid Evil Eye

USS Lexington (CC-1/CV-2) Lady Lex
USS Saratoga (CC-2/CV-3) Sara
USS Langley (CV-1/AV-3) Covered Wagon
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) The Big Stick

USS Hopper (DDG-70) is named for "Amazing Grace" Hopper. Don't know if USS Hopper answers to that or not.

saber964 wrote:

cthia wrote:I'd hazard a guess based on the fact that most of the military nicknames that we are all accustomed to are mostly American. In the US military, nicknames are a norm. "Maggot" being my favorite from day one in bootcamp. In a monarchy amongst titles and protocols, I wouldn't think disrespectful nicknames would catch on. Heck, nicknames for the ships were sorta frowned upon and had to be enjoyed in secret, like the Nasty Kitty.

-Shannon "Sleeping Beauty" Foraker (until unsafely awakened by the Committee of Public Safety)

-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

Anyways, let's not forget that Honor wore lots of hats and bore lots of titles, even in the nickname arena. She was a baseborn bitch to some. And the "boogeyman" to the Havenites.

A lot of ships have unofficial nicknames, some affectionate and others not so much. Some of the nicknames were officially recognized.

USS Enterprise both unofficially and official as Big E
USS New Jersey Big J or somewhat derisively Jersey Girl
USS Missouri Mighty Mo
USS Constellation Connie and Constipation
USS Cowpens Mighty Moo
USS Valley Forge Valley Girl
USS Wichita Wicked Witch
USS Pensacola Sweet Pea
USS Intrepid Evil Eye

Fox2 wrote:USS Lexington (CC-1/CV-2) Lady Lex
USS Saratoga (CC-2/CV-3) Sara
USS Langley (CV-1/AV-3) Covered Wagon
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) The Big Stick

USS Hopper (DDG-70) is named for "Amazing Grace" Hopper. Don't know if USS Hopper answers to that or not.

Thanks for the info guys. I was not aware of any of them and they are really interesting. But they are all American ships so it doesn't surprise me that they had nicknames. Are there any British warships who bore nicknames?

I googled it and found this site.

The nicknamed British warships seem to more malapropism than anything else.

I wonder if the nicknames were used to confound the enemy?

zyffyr wrote:

cthia wrote:-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

I seem to remember hers as "Horrible"

I was simply adding another hat to her collection, too, like Honor. Women like lots of "clothing."* For those who may not have actually found her to be so horrible. Just as Shannon also previously seemed to bear the moniker of... Shannon “Focused” Foraker.

*I'm not so certain that clothing is what women like as much as the fun of the hunt... shopping/fishing. Like some fishermen, if there was a sea I think they'd throw some of their catch back in. That's why they created the sea of "Goodwill." LOL

cthia wrote:The nicknamed British warships seem to more malapropism than anything else.

1: That wiki page doesn't seem to understand what a malapropism is.

2: British warships would tend to have "Cockney Rhyming Slang" nicknames rather than malapropisms.

cthia wrote:I'd hazard a guess based on the fact that most of the military nicknames that we are all accustomed to are mostly American. In the US military, nicknames are a norm. "Maggot" being my favorite from day one in bootcamp. In a monarchy amongst titles and protocols, I wouldn't think disrespectful nicknames would catch on. Heck, nicknames for the ships were sorta frowned upon and had to be enjoyed in secret, like the Nasty Kitty.

-Shannon "Sleeping Beauty" Foraker (until unsafely awakened by the Committee of Public Safety)

-Sonja "Unsociable" Hemphill

Anyways, let's not forget that Honor wore lots of hats and bore lots of titles, even in the nickname arena. She was a baseborn bitch to some. And the "boogeyman" to the Havenites.

Actually, I checked out Wikipedia on the subject and while there are a lot of American names on the list, you can find them in just about anyone's military. The British, Manticore's closest analogue, seemed quite fond of them ("The Great Auk" Auchinleck, "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne). And to reply to a following post as well, we hear of several ships in the Honorverse besides the Nasty Kitty that got nicknames; there was even semi-official discussion about the subject on the Charles Ward. I was more interested in commanders' nicknames.