Comments on: The Quick 10: 10 Not-So-Noble Nicknames

By: Jean

Jean — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:52:00 +0000

How about Ethelred the Unready?

By: Mar

Mar — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:29:20 +0000

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.

By: McCobb

McCobb — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:30:44 +0000

Canmore the Large Headed of Scotland

By: Pica

Pica — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:00:52 +0000

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

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:47:45 +0000

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

By: Sam Wise

Sam Wise — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:05:49 +0000

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

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:45:30 +0000

Jean sans Terre isn’t particularly flattering.

By: Zac

Zac — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:31:57 +0000

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.

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:12:32 +0000

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 …

By: Bekah

Bekah — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:09:09 +0000

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…