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Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: 10 Not-So-Noble Nicknames
by Stacy Conradt - July 22, 2008 - 2:43 PM

Sure, we all know about Peter the Great and Richard the Lion Heart, but there are some not-so flattering nicknames for various royals as well. Here are 10 of them.

10 Not-So-Noble Nicknames

1. The Beer-Jug – John George I, Elector of Saxony
2. The Cabbage – Ivailo of Bulgaria, Bulgarian Emperor
3. The Dung-Named – Constantine V, Byzantine Emperor
4. Hairy Breeches – Ragnar Lodbrok, Earl at the Danish King of Horik I
5. The Priesthater – Eric II, King of Norway
6. The Stuttering and Lame – Eric XI, King of Sweden
7. The Purple-Born – Baldwin II of Courtenay, last emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople
8. The Hunchback – Pepin, son of Charlemagne
9. The Clubfoot – Sverker I, King of Sweden
10. Flatnose – Ketil, King of the Sudreys

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Comments (10)

  1. How about:
    Pepin (or Pippin) the Short – father of Charlemagne
    or
    King Harald I of Denmark, aka Harald Bluetooth. A lot of the Viking/Saxon/general Scandinavian kings and such had these sorts of names.
    I love history…

    posted by Bekah on 7-22-2008 at 3:09 pm

  2. Is “the Purple-Born” necessarily unflattering? The first thing I thought of when I read it was “born to the purple” – born to wear the royal color, born to rule …

    posted by Amy on 7-22-2008 at 3:12 pm

  3. My personal favorite is Ivar the Boneless, who was actually the leader of the Grand (Viking) Army of 865, which conquered almost all of England, except for the Kingdom of Wessex, which would be ruled (after 876) by Alfred the Great, who would begin the Anglo-Saxon reconquest of the Danelaw from the Vikings.

    There’s also King Svein Fork-Beard, who reconquered England from the Anglo-Saxons (he was Danish) in 1014 and became the first non-Anglo-Saxon King of England.

    posted by Zac on 7-22-2008 at 3:31 pm

  4. Jean sans Terre isn’t particularly flattering.

    posted by Emily on 7-22-2008 at 3:45 pm

  5. He wasn’t royalty (instead, a Viking warlord), but you just can’t do better in my book than “Ivar the Boneless.”

    posted by Sam Wise on 7-22-2008 at 4:05 pm

  6. Man, isn’t it hard enough to be named “Sverker” in the first place??

    posted by Dave on 7-22-2008 at 4:47 pm

  7. Constantius Chlorus–Constantine the Pale–was a late Roman emperor.

    posted by Pica on 7-23-2008 at 12:00 pm

  8. Canmore the Large Headed of Scotland

    posted by McCobb on 7-23-2008 at 12:30 pm

  9. The old Catalano-Aragonese crown had two brothers with impressive nicknames. Ramon Berenguer II was called El cap d’estopa, which translates as “Burlap Head” (now, there’s a man in need of conditioner if there ever was one) and his brother Berenguer Ramon (same name, just the other way around) who was called “El fraticida”, “The brother-killer”, because he was involved in the murder of his fuzzy maned brother.

    posted by Mar on 7-30-2008 at 6:29 am

  10. How about Ethelred the Unready?

    posted by Jean on 11-1-2008 at 11:52 am

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