We’ve all heard the names of various renaissance artists before, right? Not being Italian, it’s easy to miss that some of those guys are known by nicknames. Davinci, Caravaggio, Raphael, Tintoretto, Botticelli, and Bronzino sound similar enough to anglophones, but that list is the equivalent of Anglos being named Stratford, Carmichael, James, Spunky, Reginald, and Prettyboy.
In particular, Tintoretto’s nickname meant something like “little painter boy” and Bronzino’s “tan boy.” There was a military dude from back then, who is best known now from being the subject of art – a sculpture bearing his nickname, the Gattamelata. That shit means “honey cat.”
I suppose history will remember Cherilyn Sarkisian as Cher and Louise Ciccone as Madonna, so maybe we’re still at it. But regarding those renaissance cuties, I didn’t know about it until my husband told me this information he had picked up in Art History. Thanks, man. I’m turning this tidbit into blog content. The essence of brainjackin’.
What other historical figures are known by a nickname?
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The one that comes quickest to mind is Caligula. “Little Boots” was a military brat who presumably played soldier as he accompanied his father on military campaigns.
But aside from that I can’t recall any of those nicknames that have actually displaced the real names. I mean, we know who Scarface, and The Little Corporal, and Smokin Joe and so on were.
Lots of baseball players. Who remembers George Ruth except as Babe? Or Gerald Posey except as Buster? Casey Stengel was from Kansas City.
Casey Jones lived in Cayce, Kentucky.
Criminals like “Pretty Boy” Floyd, though he despised the nickname.
Revolutionaries’ names, like Lenin, Stalin, and Che aren’t in the vein of “Honey Cat” but except for Che are better known than their birth names.
Thomas Jackson may not leap to mind as an American Civil War general unless mentioned as Stonewall Jackson.
Alvis Owens Jr. is way better known as Buck Owens.
Most of the names we can think of are nicknames that don’t entirely obscure or remove the whole birth name, but there are a few that might come close enough.
Ho Chi Minh was a made up name of someone who had already had several, but not really a nickname. There are a couple of pirates who might fit the bill. We know who Blackbeard was, but not from his name. There are some pretty descriptive ones, like
Vlad the Impaler and Jack the Ripper and the Unabomber. Billy the Kid comes pretty close, as a diminutive of an alias.
i knew i wasn’t remembering some obvious ones. thx for the less obvious ones too!
It’s a fun subject once broached. I’ve been trying to think of a few more.
A near miss might be Johnny Appleseed. He really was a John, and we do actually know his name, but historically he goes by the nickname.
In the more thorough genre, I submit Pol Pot. Few who don’t look it up know his real name, and historically he is definitely Pol Pot. It’s not even absolutely sure what his birth name was, but he adopted the name Pol Pot, a sort of nickname for “Political Potential” during his time in France.
And in a completely different world, we have “The Leatherman,” a famous itinerant hermit who kept a fairly regular route in Connecticut and New York in the late 19th century. He traveled alone, wearing a suit of leather he had made himself. Nobody knows what his real name was, or much of anything about him.
I like the ones where the nickname is so prevalent that I don’t know their real name, like Pappy Boyington, so-called for being a decade older (at 31) than the pilots he commanded. His real name was Gregory … which I had to look up.
currie – it was time traveling rob halford
goto – i cain’t believe this post is still getting comments, but these are all interesting examples.