Appropriated Appellation

"Given in scorn, adopted in pride."

When a person (often a superhero, villain or more grounded criminal) takes his name from a nickname, an insult, or a botched pronunciation, spoken or spread in print by someone else.

In real life, this could extend to criminals who adopt the moniker given them in the press. A subversion could be a criminal corresponding with the press to "correct" the error like Son of Sam or Jack the Ripper.

Can be a form of Insult Backfire when the name was meant to be derogatory. Arguably a form of in-universe Ascended Fanon.

Compare: Line-of-Sight Name, Namedar, Title Drop, Ascended Meme, and the real concept of Reappropriation. Compare and contrast Named by Democracy where someone is often forced to accept the name others use instead of willfully adopting it, possibly even lacking the ability to appropriate or protest the name. Also contrast with Your Approval Fills Me with Shame, in which the target of praise gets upset for receiving said praise. When a whole group of people does this it's N-Word Privileges.

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Other examples:

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Anime and Manga

The little pink pig avatar Haruyuki Arita uses in Accel World for day-to-day virtual interaction was originally forced on him by the bullies who tormented him as a comment on his girth. When they were removed, he did have the option to switch his avatar over to the badass knight he'd originally wanted to use but has chosen not to. Why? Because Kuroyukihime commented that she thought the pig was cute, and now Haru has no intention of ridding himself of it. That the avatar is also small enough for Kuroyukihime's avatar to carry him around like a pocket pet while in the virtual world is probably also a big plus in his book.
Akudama Drive: The main character came up with her "Swindler" alias by flashing back to the police and takoyaki stand owner accusing her of being a swindler.
Back Arrow: The main character is an Amnesiac Hero and doesn't remember his name. Bit calls him "Bakayarou", which means "idiot", but he mishears it as "Back Arrow" and decides to make it his name. In the English dub, Bit instead calls him a "blunt arrow" to signify he thinks the man is useless, but he again mishears it as "Back Arrow" and makes it his name.
"Chad" of Bleach got his name when Ichigo met him, and mispronounced his real name "Sado" (the Japanese version uses "Chado").
Jeremiah Gottwald of Code Geass lands the nickname Orange in association with the scandal to which he was linked by Zero. Eventually he takes it as a symbol of loyalty once he learns of Zero's identity and motives.
In Death Note, Light is quickly dubbed Kira ("killer" approximated in Japanese) by the media and decides to use that name in his dealings with others. He dislikes how it's obviously derived from "killer", but it's what the world already knows him as, so he might as well go along with it.
Fairy Tail: Princess Hisui commented that the dragon Zirconis' hide was colored jade, and that her own name also meant jade. Zirconis decided "The Jade Dragon" had a nice ring to it, and it became his Red Baron.
Gon, the main character of Hunter × Hunter, names his Rock-Paper-Scissor (Janken) move Jajanken after he stutters on the first syllable and his opponent thinks he called it Jajanken on purpose (Jajan! as a surprise, and Janken for the rock-paper-scissors).
Played straight in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 with Patrick Colasour. He survives getting his ass kicked by the Gundams enough that he earns the nickname "Colasour The Indestructible". He seems oblivious they're disparaging him. Kati Mannequin tries to explain it to him once; apparently, he doesn't know what "disparage" means.
My Hero Academia:
- Izuku Midoriya spent his life being insulted with the nickname "Deku" (an Alternate Character Reading of his name) by childhood friend-turned-bully Bakugo. Bakugo meant "Deku" to mean "weakling" but Ochaco, Izuku's crush, initially interprets it with another meaning, "never gives up"^note This causes Izuku to not only like it but even adopt "Deku" as his Hero Name.
- "League of Villains" was originally a throwaway name made up for the USJ attack, meant to be discarded along with the small army of mooks after All Might was killed. After Shigaraki starts recruiting actual dedicated members, the name starts being used in earnest.
In My Clueless First Friend: Nishimura is called a Shinigami (or Grim Reaper in the translations) by her classmates, and the name is definitely meant to be insulting, but the name seems to bother her less than the general ostracism that accompanies it. However, once the eponymous first friend, Takada, decides that that nickname is extremely cool and keeps using it, it starts to grow on Nishimura specifically when he uses it, to the point that when he offers to stop, she asks him to continue calling her that. Downplayed in that even after this, Nishimura does not especially like being called a Shinigami by her other classmates, although her attitude shifts from dejection to indifference.
In One Piece, Zoro was frequently called the Pirate Hunter, as he was a bounty hunter, and pirates were the most likely people to hold bounties. But the reality was that Zoro needed their bounty money to pay for food and to repair his swords. Also, this could have easily been the epithet for any other bounty hunter.
- Now that he's one of the most wanted pirates in the world, he's STILL called "Pirate Hunter Zoro", which doesn't really make sense considering he's, well, a pirate. Unless you consider that plenty of the people he's fought have been other pirates. It's only been in his more recent incidents where he's attacked the government.
In Rave Master, the name of the Demon Card organization was originally supposed to be Demon Guard instead (as they were an anti-demon security force before their Start of Darkness), but the original founder painted the sign the wrong way in the middle of the night and failed to notice it in time. However, the name stuck.
Rebuild World: Viola being called a "bad girl" often is adopted like this, with Viola and Carol each calling each other it and taking a sort of pride in it. Sheryl is less happy about being grouped in with the two as such.
In Record of Grancrest War, Theo refers to Siluca affectionately as "my witch", although witch in that setting refers to a mage that's criminal or serving Chaos. This is for two reasons; first, having grown up where he did, Theo doesn't know much about mages outside of fairytales, and secondly, mage magic is quite common and lacks mystique. Witches are what do impossible feats, villainous though they are.
Sailor Moon S: The Movie: The main villainess runs into Kakeru Ohzora, a guy who is completely obsessed with Princess Kaguya from the story The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. He mistakes her for Princess Kaguya. She is confused, but decides she likes that name and uses it. Her real name is never mentioned.
SHY: The Big Bad, Stigma, took that name from his opponents nicknaming him that.
Slam Dunk: Protagonist Hanamichi Sakuragi begins using the title "Rebound King" on himself after Haruko calls him this way. A rare instance where the nickname is genuinely meant to be motivational, rather than insulting or demeaning.
In the backstory of The Story of Saiunkoku, Ko Houju was called "kijin" (weirdo) as an insult. After he was rejected by a woman for being much more beautiful than herself, he began wearing masks constantly and calling himself Ko Kijin, which is the name that most of the other characters of the series know him by.
In Tokyo Ghoul, it's standard practice for the CCG to assign an alias to unknown Ghouls. Many embrace them and start using these nicknames as their alias among their own kind as well. Perhaps the most famous example is the One-Eyed Owl, who gleefully embraced this title as their own.
The titular heroes of Tokyo Mew Mew got their name from reporters mishearing Ichigo's introduction of "Uh, we're from Cafe Mew Mew in Tokyo...", partially thanks to Minto, who, having some sense, muffled her to protect their secret identities.
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs: In the Alternate Timeline known as the Marie Route, a Girl Posse calling him "an upstart" is adopted with pride by Leon, who is surrounded by entitled nobles who did nothing to earn their power or wealth while he suffered and still suffers.
Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: In Ai’s final moments, he admits that despite the fact Yusaku gave him his name in a moment of laziness, he came to genuinely like it, to the point that all of the Spell and Trap Cards he uses contain puns on it.

Art

Louis Vauxcelles, a turn-of-the-20th-century French art critic, had one of the worst track records for insults in history. The Edwardian Era featured the birth of a new art movement in painting, spearheaded by Henri Matisse and Georges Braque, and characterized by "wild brush work and strident colors". In 1905, upon seeing an exhibit of the works of Matisse's circle next to a statue of Donatello, Vauxcelles declared that it was "Donatello chez les fauves" ("Donatello amidst the wild beasts"). He accidentally baptized the nameless movement as "Fauvism", when the press started using it as a formal name. Several of the artists he was insulting started using the name in reference to themselves and went on to become Household Names. Three years later, Vauxcelles described the experimental works of Picasso and Braque as "bizarreries cubiques". Today, we call their movement cubism.
The Impressionists got their name from a satirical journalist, who derived it from Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
Pointillism, the technique of painting with small dots of color, was given this name by art critics to mock it. Once Neo-Impressionism came into full swing, which used this technique, the name lost its mocking connotation.

Fan Works

Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): "San" is at first merely a nickname that Vivienne Graham gave to Ghidorah's left head while Ghidorah was frozen, but following San's Heel–Face Turn, he takes it as his name officially.
The All Guardsmen Party is assigned to an upper-crust, noble officer they refer to only as "the Rupert". Despite this being an offensive term for incompetent blue blood officers, the Rupert wholeheartedly adopted the term and even insists the guardsmen refer to him as such.
Arc Phantoms: Yuzu's Phantom Thief name, Bloom, comes from Yuya's remark upon seeing her elegant Phantom Thief attire, and he says that she "bloomed" into a beautiful lady.
Belief And Strings: In "Bugs and Politics", the incognito ant princess diplomat is soon nicknamed "Sore Spot" by a young Tiso. By the end of the fic she has officially adopted it as her name.
Dial: During the discussion to eliminate the HYDRA moles within SHIELD, and the decision to dismantle SHIELD as well, Mahmoud proposes another solution, to rebuild it into something better, the organization that SHIELD was meant to be, "the bridge between what people consider normal, and all the weirdness out there", to not only protect the innocent the misuse of power but to also assist those that gain powers. Afterwards, SHIELD is indeed disbanded and reformed into the Bureau of Reconnaissance, Intelligence, Development, and General Enhancement, a.k.a. BRIDGE.
Fallout: Equestria: Velvet is a staunch follower of Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness. She has a breakdown when she realizes that Fluttershy is the one who created the megaspells that destroyed the world but eventually recovers and rededicates herself to the cause. Reggie points out that this basically means she's a follower of the apocalypse. Velvet accepts that name, and in the epilogue the Followers of the Apocalypse are one of the greatest forces of good in the reviving Wasteland, taking care of children and spreading knowledge.
Final Fantasy I: Warrior's Journey: The Warrior of Light shares the story of Dissidia Final Fantasy with his allies during the trip to the Chaos Shrine, but none of them are particularly inclined to believe him, to the point that Silva mockingly calls him "Godslayer" the next morning. After the party sees Garland disappear, and concludes that he was sent to World B for the divine conflict, it stops being a mocking title, and the Warrior himself addresses himself as such after Garland-as-Chaos is defeated.
Warrior: Let this [crystal] be not a symbol of prophecy, but a reminder of who I am. The nameless Godslayer who didn't know what a chocobo is, when first he arrived in this world.
A Girl and Her Bike:
- Yang decides to name her new bike Bumblebee. B-127 decides that it's as good a name as any and takes it up as his new identity.
- The Ascenticons were insultingly called Decepticons back on Cybertron. When Megatron's true nature surfaced, he took this as their cause's new name.
In Hunters of Justice, the Shazam family don't yet have names for their superhero identities. During a battle against Mr. Mind, the Venusan mockingly calls them "living marvels". Billy Batson has that word in his mind when he finally gives his superhero name to Black Adam as Captain Marvel.
Invader Zim: A Bad Thing Never Ends: Zim starts referring to Gaz as "Gaz-Beast" as an insult, but she decides that she likes the ring of it.
This is the story behind Glass Joe's stage name in Ma Fille: his daughter overheard a teacher at her school calling him that, and he took a liking to the name.
In the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton series, Supergirl was a name Jameson called Kara in his newspapers as a condescending insult. After some thought, Kara decides to take it up as her superhero name.
Last Child of Krypton: After Shinji rescues a crashing airplane, dozens of newspapers publish headlines about the mysterious saviour of Toyko-2. However, a headline stuck out most of all: "Who is Superman?". People started calling Shinji's hero identity "Superman" and the name stuck.
More than Meets the Spy: Anya gives B-127 the nickname "Bumblebee", both because his vehicular appearance was reminiscent of bees and because she felt he deserved a name to go by, not a letter with a series of numbers. Ultimately, he comes to appreciate it and takes the name as his own.
B-127 (thoughts): Huh, it actually has a nice ring to it.
One for All and Eight for the Ninth:
- During their time on I-Island, Tokoyami refers to Izuku's polycule as an "Ennead", which in mythology is a group made up of the nine most important Egyptian gods. Izuku and the girls admit it has a nice ring to it, and start referring to themselves as such.
- Nezu's surname on his paperwork is Inokuma (犬熊). He got it from a Japanese student who was studying him in the Daintree Rainforest, who kept asking if the animal stealing her notes was a mouse, a dog, or a bear. When she was killed trying to shut down the laboratory he was being studied in, he kept her suggestion as his legal name (and his introductory Catchphrase) in her honor.
Oni Ga Shiku Series: Back in middle school Mikumo Akatani's bullies used to call him "Yamikumo" for being overly gloomy. Years later, he used that name for his Yakuza family, being referred to as the Yamikumo clan as opposed to the Akatani clan.
Prehistoric Park: Reimagined: As a result of a less than flattering initial impression he gets of Leon's competency and skills (or lack thereof) as a member of the rescue team, Jack takes to calling him 'Dolittle' as an insulting reference to how he views Leon as largely 'a walking textbook' containing knowledge of various animals. But while at first less than pleased with the nickname, Leon eventually ends up inspired to incorporate an audio recording device containing recordings of various animal vocalizations into his work when he remembers how Doctor Dolittle himself quite famously Speaks Fluent Animal.
The W.I.T.C.H. fanfic Ripples reveals that Miranda's real name is Mimira. It's just that Cedric couldn't be bothered to remember her actual name and called her Miranda instead; being young and impressionable at the time of this initial mistake, she convinced herself that he would only be doing this if Miranda was a better name. By the time of the sequel Stirred, the only person who still calls her Mimira is Van.
In Sex Note, a Death Note AU where Light Yagami picks up a Sex Note instead of a Death Note, the media gives him the name Kougoukan (literally "anti-rape") instead of Kira because instead of using a Death Note to kill people Light is using his magic sex toy to prevent rapes from occurring.
The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lost in Gotham: After being bitten by the same spider that previously bit Peter, Gwen Stacy gained identical spider powers to his. After getting Aunt May to help create a costume for her, Gwen's debut fighting the Sinister Six caused people to initially think she was the ghost of Spider-Man. From then on, the Ghost Spider moniker stuck to her.
Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K: The clone trooper CT-7226 was given the nickname "Bucket" by his friends after an incident where he got his head stuck inside his helmet for two months. He apparently decided he didn't mind the nickname and kept it.
Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: When Asuka started out her super-heroine career, "Tokyo Tattle" -a tabloid- called her Power Girl. She liked that name. Later she resolved to change her costume and heroine identity, and she asked Shinji what they were calling the new superwoman. Shinji told "Tokyo Tattle" had baptized her Supergirl, and she chose that name for herself.
According to Hank McCoy/Beast in Chapter 4 of Tooth and Nail (Quantumec), the binomial nomenclature of "Homo Superior" was never the true, official scientific designation of mutantkind at any given point, and that their true designation is "Homo Mutandis". The former was just propaganda used by humans in high positions of power as a means of fearmongering, which Magneto and his Brotherhood co-opted when he declared war on them.
Unity (Finmonster): Upon first seeing the Legion of Doom organized by Enigma, Fred calls it a "secret supervillain syndicate". Enigma comments that "syndicate" is a pretty accurate name, and adopts it for the group.
Weasley Girl: Snape uses the term "Potter's Gang" as an insulting description of Harry and his friends. It catches on, first among the students, then among the newly-dubbed Gang themselves.
In Wonderful (Mazinja):
- Taylor's fans came up with the “Wonder Red” name. She didn't like it, but she accepted it anyway.
- Averted with “Crimson Fists”. Taylor found out about that name after she was stuck with “Wonder Red”.

Films — Animation

Early in Cars, Lightning McQueen tauntingly calls Chick Hicks "Thunder", because "thunder always comes after lightning". When Chick and McQueen meet a few days later, Chick has adopted the "Thunder" nickname as part of a new persona, much of which is stolen from McQueen.
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths. The Anti-Monitor doesn't even understand the concept of a name until Charles Halstead explains the concept, and accepts "Anti-Monitor" as a name given that it's opposed to everything the Monitor does. Charles in turn mentions that he chooses a supervillain name (and even a 'real' name) for each new universe he works in. When Supergirl says he's dressed like a psychotic pirate, he's quite happy to adopt Psycho-Pirate as his latest name.
Transformers One: D-16, after getting tortured and bested by Cybertron's ruler Sentinel Prime who turned out to be a treacherous quisling who also killed his other idol, Megatronus Prime, was mockingly told to "rise up". After killing Sentinel after the traitor's reputation is destroyed, D-16, now Megatron, adopts said mocking line as his rallying cry to his followers who would become the Decepticons. He even takes the Megatronus decal Sentinel cut onto his chest and makes it into the Decepticon insignia.

Films — Live-Action

In Batman Returns, The Penguin gets called this initially by the press until he finds out his real name is Oswald. After his villainy is revealed, Penguin berates one of his goons for calling him Oswald.
Penguin: "I am not a human being! I am an animal! Cold-blooded!"
Similar to the animated example below, Meredith Dimly accidentally gives the Bratz their name in the live movie.
In Reb Brown's Captain America (1979), it's explained that "Captain America" was originally a derogatory nickname that the bad guys gave Steve's father. A friend of Steve's father urges Steve to use it to honor his dad's memory.
Jam "Captain America" down their throats!
In Cinderella, Ella initially despises her stepsisters' awful nickname for her but eventually comes to accept it and then embrace it, to the point that she even introduces herself to the prince as Cinderella.
Crazy, Stupid, Love has Hannah called Nana by her family because her little sister had trouble with her name.
DC Extended Universe:
- Subverted in Man of Steel. Lois is about to suggest the name "Superman", but the military party watching their conversation interrupts her. Later in the film, after Clark in costume is on good terms with the military after protecting them during an engagement with the Kryptonians, a soldier is talking to General Swanwick and using the term "Superman" to describe him. Swanwick gives him a "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard" look. By Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman is his acknowledged superhero name.
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice generally avoids using "Batman" directly as a name, instead suggesting he has multiple names given by the press, from the bat, to the Gotham Bat to The Bat-Man. This is rather appropriate, as in this setting Batman is not so much of an individual but a myth, an urban legend. By Justice League and Zack Snyder's Justice League, most of the names of the heroes are taken from the Lex Corp metahuman files seen in BvS.
The Dirty Dozen: Sergeant Bowren nicknames the twelve convicts 'the dirty dozen' after they refuse to bathe or shave as a protest regarding their poor living conditions. The name sticks.
In Dracula Untold, when he was initially reminded that he's the "son of the devil", Vlad corrected this: Dracula means "son of the dragon". However, at the climax of the movie, he says "I'm Dracula, son of the devil".
The characters in Full Metal Jacket are only known by the insulting nicknames Sgt. Hartman gave them in boot camp.
Dragonheart: When Draco grows tired of Bowen calling him “Dragon” Bowen questions what his name actually is, Draco claims that it would be impossible for a human to pronounce, and before he can say it he is interrupted and so Bowen decides to nickname him “Draco” after the Constellation Draco, while Draco is amused that Bowen essentially is still just calling him Dragon in another language he happily accepts the nickname due to being honored to be named after the Constellation.
In Girl House, the Spree Killer Loverboy takes his online handle (and the only name anyone knows him by) from a mocking insult thrown at him by girls when he was a child.
When a snobbish Caustic Critic in The Greatest Showman scathingly dismisses P.T. Barnum's Museum as a "circus of humbug" in his review, Barnum decides he likes the sound of it, renames the venue to P.T. Barnum's Circus and starts wearing a gilt-paper crown over his top hat with the text "King of Humbug". As he sees it, there's No Such Thing as Bad Publicity, and sure enough, the crowds come flocking.
Idiocracy: Time-travelling Cpl. Joe Bauers is re-named Not Sure by the bar code machine as he tries to explain that he doesn't understand how it's supposed to work. That's President Not Sure to you, private!
Inglorious Basterds: Hans Landa as seen in the beginning, when he mentions having been given the title of "Jew Hunter", which he finds to be rather catchy. Subverted in the final act, several years later, when he has come to loathe the accolade. Both reactions may have just been a lie: he states that he enjoys the moniker to LaPadite, whom he is trying to intimidate, and expresses his distaste for it to Aldo and Utivich, who he is trying to broker a deal with and who are both well known for despising the Nazi's. Or his opinion may have simply changed over time.
Joker (2019):
- The titular character adopts his moniker after watching his favorite talk show host mock his failed stand-up set.
  Murray: And finally, in a world where everyone thinks they could do my job, here's a guy who thinks if you just keep laughing, it'll somehow make you funny. Check out this joker.
  [later]
  Arthur: When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?
- Thomas Wayne insults the crowd of Gothamite protesters using "clowns", so what do they do? Well, they start wearing clown masks.
The Last Jedi: In their climatic showdown, Captain Phasma furiously tells Finn "You were always scum". He immediately corrects her: "Rebel scum". It signals his pivot from only caring about Rey to fighting for the Resistance and what it stands for.
Lemonade Mouth: The titular band gets its name from an insult hurled at Stella by the resident alpha brat after she spits lemonade in his face in defense of her friends.
In Lord of War Arms dealer Yuri is called a "lord of war" by one of his clients. He thinks the man mispronounced "warlord". Later he realizes that is exactly what he is.
Major League: Initially, the Cleveland Indians fans call Rick Vaughn "Wild Thing" because he has control issues and can't pitch the ball over the plate. After he gets glasses and becomes an elite pitcher, they still use the name, now in reference to his bad boy personality.
Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Iron Man: Tony Stark gets the name Iron Man from a news headline. Although he points out that it's not technically accurate, since his suit isn't actually made of iron, but a gold-titanium alloy, he likes the sound of it and begins to use the name himself. In the novelization, he mentions the Black Sabbath song of the same name and has the chords playing in his head during his announcement.
- In The Incredible Hulk (2008), a student on the news says "It was like some kind of... Hulk!" Also, when Blonsky is forcing Sterns to give him Hulk powers, Sterns warns him that the combination of the Super Serum and Gamma Radiation might result in "An Abomination". Both of these are straight out of the comics.
- In Iron Man 2, when Rhodey puts on the earlier suit and gets into a brawl with Tony, Tony asks him, "You wanna be the War Machine?" Rhodey grows to like it, even after his Pentagon backers rechristen him as Iron Patriot in Iron Man 3.
- In Captain America: The First Avenger, the name "Captain America" was given to Steve during the USO tours, but he would use that name during his first military mission. The soldiers he rescued would also use that name without any sarcasm. And by the time he is an Avenger, he's still referred to as "Captain" (to the point some call him "Captain Rogers"). Given he uses this to pull rank early on, it seems that they actually made him an Army Captain even though he was mainly an entertainer at first.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): During the final battle, the main villain of the film, Ronan the Accuser, sarcastically refers to the main characters as the "guardians of the galaxy" after their initial attempts to stop him have failed. When they finally turn the tables on him, they accept the moniker with pride.
  Ronan: You're mortal! HOW?!
  Quill: You said it yourself, bitch, we're the Guardians of the Galaxy.
- Avengers: Age of Ultron: Vision starts off as an intended new body for Ultron. When he's brought to life independently by the Avengers, Thor makes reference to "having had a vision", and for want of anything else to call him this becomes his name.
- Spider-Man: Far From Home: Quentin Beck is referred to in an Italian news broadcast as "l'uomo di mistero" (literally "the man of mystery"), and Peter's classmates coin the name "Mysterio" from a mishearing of the term. Peter later relays the name to Beck, and he decides to adopt it as his official moniker.
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings downplays this with Xu Wenwu, who doesn't actually go by "The Mandarin" in the way that Trevor Slattery did while briefly appropriating his and the Ten Rings' identity. However, he is rather amused by it, if only because "a pretender named after an orange" was able to strike genuine fear in the U.S. government, so he does at least consider it one of the many names he's gone by in his very long lifetime.
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: Namor explains to Shuri that, when he killed the Spanish settlers as a child, a dying priest called him "niño sin amor", "child without love". He liked the way Namor sounded and took it as his name.
- Thunderbolts* (2025): Set up and ultimately subverted. When Alexei tries hyping everyone up as being a superteam, John sarcastically says "Go Thunderbolts", which was the name of Yelena's elementary school soccer team. Alexei, being The Ditz, takes that to mean Yelena already named them after her soccer team. Nobody else goes with it though, and when they are given a name at the end of the movie, it's The New Avengers.
Subverted in Mystery Men. The protagonists spend most of the film without having thought of a name for their team. After saving the day at the end:
Reporter: Well, whatever you call them, Champion City will forever owe a debt of gratitude to these mystery men.
The Sphinx: Wait! Wait, that's it! We are... The Super Squad!
Pride (2014): Which is a Based on a True Story about the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign of 1984–1985, discusses this and uses it as the Inciting Incident for the group organising the actual "Pits and Perverts" benefit concert.
Bromley: They called us perverts.
Mark: Bromley, it's time for an important part of your education. Hands up, in this room, if you've ever been called a name like that. [everyone else except Bromley raises their hand]
Mark: Now, there is a long and honorable tradition in the gay community and it has stood us in good stead for a very long time. When somebody calls you a name... am I right, Jonathan?
Jonathan: Dead right.
Mark: You take it and own it.
Rain Man was named by his little brother, who couldn't pronounce "Raymond."
Shalako: "Shalako" means "rainbringer". He was nicknamed so by the Zuni people because he brought rain with him whenever he visited. He decided to make it his name since he liked it better than his actual given one, which is Moses Zebulan.
In She's Out of My League, the hero's best friend says that children taunted him with the name "stainer" after an accident, but the hero suggested he adopt it. Stainer's story is told near the end of the movie as an example of the hero's great qualities.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): Not only does the film give a nod to the Eggman nickname, but throughout the film, Sonic refers to Tom as Donut Lord (partly due to not knowing Tom's actual name until after the first act), much to the latter's annoyance. Come Sonic's Disney Death, this exchange happens after using one of Sonic's rings to surprise Robotnik in his eggmobile:
Robotnik: Who the hell do you think you are?
Tom: I'm the Donut Lord, you son of a bi-
Spider-Man:
- When Peter Parker tries out at an underground fight club just after he gained his superpowers, he calls himself "The Human Spider". The fight announcer thinks that is a stupid name and instead introduces him as "The Amazing Spider-Man". Peter is annoyed at first but then embraces it after hearing the crowd triumphantly chanting "Spider-Man! Spider-Man!".
- Green Goblin is also named by the press, as is Doctor Octopus in the sequel.
Played straight in Superman (1978), when Lois Lane decides to call the guy in a cape flying around "Superman".
They Call Me Bruce. The Korean protagonist works as the cook for a mob boss who calls him "Bruce" after Bruce Lee because Interchangeable Asian Cultures. So he starts calling himself Bruce, leading to a Running Gag of people assuming he knows Kung Fu if he's called by that name.
Unbreakable:
Elijah Price: In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain's going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero, and most time's they're friends, like you and me! I should've known way back when. You know why, David? Because of the kids! They called me Mr. Glass.
X-Men: First Class: Once they prevent WWIII and Erik and Raven leave the team, Charles decides to open his own mutant school, while Moira tells him they will continue to be G-Men, just without the "G", she then jokingly calls "X-Men". Charles likes the sound of it and decides to make his official team.

Music

Apparently, Breaking Benjamin got its name from an incident at an open mic night where Ben Burnley was covering a Nirvana song and knocked over the microphone he had borrowed, cracking it. After the song was finished, the owner of the microphone came up on stage and said, "I'd like to thank Benjamin for breaking my fucking mic."
Jazz musician Julian Edwin Adderley got his stage name Cannonball Adderley from a nickname he had in high school due to being a Big Eater (as a play on "cannibal"). Though some sources have it that one particular classmate meant to call him a "cannibal", but mispronounced it, and the nickname spread more to mock his classmate for being a Malaproper than to mock Adderley himself.
Daft Punk named themselves after a review of their first musical attempt (a punk rock band, Darlin'), that a British music magazine dismissed as "a daft punky thrash".
According to the Diablo Swing Orchestra's "backstory", the band's first incarnation lived in the 16th century, where they were hated by the church because of how they turned people against them. Because of this, priests labelled them "the Devil's orchestra", among other things, a name which caught on. Eventually, the orchestra was captured and executed, but 500 years later, their reincarnations met up and also used a variant of that name for their own band.
Dismember was filed a lawsuit over the Gorn lyrics of "Skin Her Alive", calling the band "pornographic, obscene or indecent". After it was settled (in their favor), they released their next album, titled Indecent and Obscene.
When Butch Vig showed some new songs, someone reacted saying it was garbage. He called the band Garbage.
Swedish modern jazz musician Mats Gustafsson once sent comic artist and jazz aficionado Robert Crumb a collection of his albums and various other modern jazz records, hoping for feedback. Crumb's flabbergasted, scathing letter of response was what coined the title of Gustafsson's following album, Torturing the Saxophone.
Harsh Noise legends Hijokaidan were actually a spinoff of experimental rock band Rasenkaidan ("the Spiral Stairs"). The founding members did a studio jam in front of another Rasenkaidan member, causing him to remark "This isn't the Spiral Stairs, it's more like the emergency exit (hijōkaidan)."
The name of hip hop group Jurassic 5 was originally jokingly proposed by a friend of the group, who meant to mock their old-school style.
When The Yardbirds collapsed, leaving Jimmy Page as sole remaining member, he recruited three unknown musicians (they knew each other through session work) and carried on. Legal uncertainties caused them to become the New Yardbirds. Then The Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle made a remark about them going down "like a lead zeppelin". They adopted this name, changing the spelling to the familiar Led Zeppelin at the suggestion of their US distributor, who thought people might mispronounce (and misconstrue) "Lead" as if it were "lead a horse to water".
Speaking of the Yardbirds, they were named after the legendary jazz musician Charlie Parker, who earned the nickname "Yardbird" (slang for "Chicken") early in his career: when his band's van ran over a chicken in the road, he insisted they stop so he could pick it up and cook it for dinner that night. The band called him Yardbird to make fun of him for eating roadkill, and the name stuck, although it was soon shortened to just "Bird". Eventually Parker became the greatest musician of his era, and people called him "Bird" out of reverence and admiration, associating his music with soaring heights and the beauty of songbirds.
The term "Bro-Country", describing a sub-genre of Country Music that takes heavy influence from contemporary hip-hop and pop music, was first coined by music journalist Jody Rosen to describe Florida Georgia Line's hit "Cruise", and has since become a more neutral descriptor of the sound.
In short, "Cruise" is bro-country: music by and of the tatted, gym-toned, party-hearty young American white dude. It's a movement that has been gathering steam for several years now, and we may look back on "Cruise" as a turning point, the moment when the balance of power tipped from an older generation of male country stars to the bros.
Lil B was originally called "based" as an insult, but he adopted it into his nickname, Basedgod.
In Argentina, a "grasa" is a derogatory term for someone with customs of poor people, and a "negro" is someone with dark skin (usually from northern Argentine provinces or other South American nations). The audience of the "Malón" band organized a crowd chorus: "Baila la hinchada baila, baila de corazón, somos los negros, somos los grasas, pero conchetos no" ("dances, the crowd dances, it dances with a passion, we are the negros, we are the grasas, but socialites we are not"). The band itself liked the song so much that they follow it with their instruments.
According to Josh Homme, "When we were making a record in 1992, under the band Kyuss, our producer Chris Goss, he would joke and say 'You guys are like the queens of the stone age.'" And after Kyuss folded, Homme made good use of that joke.
When John Michael Osbourne was growing up in war-torn Birmingham, UK in the 1950s, his schoolyard bullies would call him "Ozzy". As he grew up, he claimed the taunt for himself, becoming Ozzy Osbourne.
The Residents got their name from a rejection letter they received after sending a demo tape to Warner (Bros.) Records: because they didn't include a name in the return address, the letter was simply addressed to "Residents".
Shortly after deciding to form a band together, Al Jourgensen, Richard 23, and Luc Van Acker went out to a bar and eventually found themselves kicked out for starting a brawl. The bartender called them "a bunch of revolting cocks", and sure enough, the band was newly christened The Revolting Cocks.
Al Jourgensen's project 1,000 Homo DJs was similarly named after a comment from Wax Trax! owner Jim Nash, who said of the group's demo, "No one's gonna play this. It's gonna take a thousand homo DJs to play this for anyone to buy it."
The title of Ministry's album Filth Pig is lifted from a derogatory reference to Al Jourgensen, this time from a speech by a British MP.
The Righteous Brothers were named as such after playing a gig and a fan tells them their set was "righteous, brother".
There's an all-Asian-American rock band called the Slants, who have been embroiled in litigation for years with the US Patent & Trademark Office, who refuse to register the name as a trademark because it's an ethnic slur.
The Spice Girls' individual nicknames (Sporty, Scary, Baby, etc.) were invented by the press – or in some versions by Simon Cowell who couldn't remember their names – and only retroactively adopted by the singers themselves.
Triple-Q's Twitter profile describes him as "the guy whose claim to fame is mashing up other people's work", a dismissive comment that Risk of Rain composer Chris Christodoulou made about him after he complained about Christodoulou's attitudes towards fan remixes and covers of his music.
When Noise Rock band Steel Pole Bath Tub submitted demos for what was to be their second album for Slash Records, the label rejected the material, calling it "unlistenable". The band would eventually release these same demos on their own label, giving it the title Unlistenable.
When Stan Ridgway played a friend some music he and Mark Moreland were working on for a film soundtrack, he jokingly compared the layered production to Phil Spector's "Wall Of Sound". Because of how unnerving the music was, his friend quipped that it was more like a "Wall of Voodoo".
1980s band What Is This adopted their name after hearing audiences ask that question during their shows.
"Weird Al" Yankovic adopted the moniker as his late-night DJ handle after his classmates at California Polytechnical called him "Weird Al" for his looks.

Mythology and Religion

The term "Christian" was originally an insult. Christians originally called themselves "followers of the way", but beginning in Antioch, they were derisively called Christianoi ("belonging to Christ"/"slaves of Christ"), which they ended up adopting during the New Testament era.
Members of the Churches of Christ have consistently refused the appellation "Campbellites", but frequently accept other epithets thrown at them. One author's tract semi-famously declared "I Have A Closed Mind".
Mormons, originally a derogatory nickname for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has passed into common usage, including among church members.
Ditto for Quakers (the Society of Friends, who were given that name by a magistrate when their founder's response to a charge of blasphemy was that the magistrate should "quake at the word of the Lord") and Santeria (Lukumi).
A bit obscure, but the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing were 1) an offshoot of a Quaker group and 2) known for their use of dance during worship. They were given the nickname "Shaking Quakers", which then got abbreviated again into "Shakers".
Likewise Methodism, which started as a Bible study/spiritual formation group led by John and Charles Wesley at Oxford and were called "Methodists" and "The Holy Club" by their fellow students.
"Puritans" was an Elizabethan-era insult for that group; at the time they called themselves "Professors" (as in someone who 'professes' the Word).
Adherents of Germanic reconstructionist Neo-Paganism often identify as "Heathens", while adherents of some neo-pagan traditions such as Wicca and Stregheria self-identify as "Witches".
Far older than all of these is one of the original names for the Israelites: Hebrews. The word for "a Hebrew" in Hebrew is Ivri, and one of the first times this word appears in the The Bible is when the Pharaoh's wine steward is telling the Pharaoh about this boy Joseph that can interpret dreams. He's concerned that Pharaoh might raise him too highly, so he calls him a "na'ar eved ivri" — a boy, a slave, and an "ivri", which means a descendant of Eber, but in this case is used in the context of "across", as in "across the border", as in "foreigner". The intended insult would become one of the common names for the Israelites.
The term "Bible Belt" was coined as an insult by hardcore Nietzschean atheist H. L. Mencken. Once people realised it wasn't going anywhere, and if anything was gaining strength, it became a term of acknowledgement, if not endearment.
Not an insult, but the Persians called the Hebrew people in their empire (who were all originally from the Kingdom of Judah)^note "Jews". Today, Jew has completely displaced "Hebrew".
Jesus Freaks, originally applied to Christian hippies.
Non-religious and anti-religious types occasionally (and more commonly since 9/11) adopt the title Infidels. It's also been appropriated by other non-Muslims; shirts that say "infidel" on them in both English and Arabic are a common sight in some parts.
The term "fisheaters" was used as a derogatory term for Catholic immigrants (since they abstained from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays). However, a popular traditionalist Catholic site bears that very name.
"Naṣrānī" is an Arabic term that has been historically used for Christians (and Westerners in general). It wasn't necessarily considered an insult since it translates to "Nazarene" (as in, followers of Jesus of Nazareth), but it became widely known after the fall of Mosul when Islamic State terrorists used it as a slur against Assyrian Christians by marking their homes with the word "N" in Arabic. The term was adopted by Christians worldwide to raise awareness of the persecution of their fellow co-regionalists.

Podcasts

Penny from Binary Break is actually Mark Penwell, but in elementary school, kids called him "Penny" to make fun of him. He either liked it, or simply didn't realize it was meant to be an insult, so he still goes by it.
In The Fallen Gods, Tuatha's horse is named Haku'Yethin, which is goblin for "Pain in my Ass". Hak's a sweetheart though, it was just the goblins that found him a pain.

Professional Wrestling

Tully Blanchard, the Anderson Brothers, and Ric Flair were thrown together at the last minute to fill up the NWA's TV time. The segment was well received and compared to the Four Horsemen in the Bible, so the fans began calling them The Four Horsemen of Wrestling, which the group then adopted themselves. Being a carbon copy, Evolution tried to invoke the same thing but it was only in story; the fans didn't jump on the name that time.
Cometa Azules III was nicknamed "Apache" by the trainers and students of Blue Demon's Lucha Libre school after they saw him without his mask. Seeing an opportunity to give people a more accurate image of Apaches rather than "cowboys and Indians", III shed his mask and made "Gran Apache" his gimmick.
When Hulk Hogan made his famous Face–Heel Turn and joined Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, the group didn't have a name at the time (Nash and Hall were called "The Outsiders"). However, when Hogan got on the mic to explain the turn, he said, "You can think of us as the New World Order of wrestling!" To say the name stuck would be an understatement.
Phil Mushnick, longtime sports writer for TV Guide, has written a number of blistering rants against Professional Wrestling. One of them in the '90s was aimed at wrestling fans in particular; Mushnick dubbed wrestling's mostly-18-to-24 fanbase "Degeneration X", lamenting the mental and moral degeneracy they must have to enjoy the product WWF was putting out at the time. Fast forward a few months, and Shawn Michaels and Triple H formed a tag team known for lewd and sophomoric antics — and, after Bret Hart called them and their fans "degenerates", they decided to label themselves D-Generation X. Thus making their team name an example both in-Kayfabe (Michaels and HHH appropriating the label Hart gave them) and outside of it (WWF appropriating the label Mushnick gave their fans).
Being the unintelligible rambler of Gateway Championship Wrestling with friends almost as antisocial, all of Delirious's signatures and finishers were named by his enemies, Operation Shamrock. Names such as Panic attack, chemical imbalance, shadows over hell, and banana phone and the fact he doesn't seem to protest them paints a pretty good picture of his psyche.
Athena spent two years in Booker T's PWA promotion with the ring name "Trouble" based on the fact she was labeled as such by most Texas wrestling enterprises early into her career. Eventually Athena's reputation improved enough, or perhaps her fan base grew large enough, for this to be dropped.
During a 2019 investor call, Vince McMahon took a disparaging shot at WWE's rival promotion AEW (known for its sometimes-extreme hardcore matches) by stating that WWE wouldn't resort to "blood and guts and gory things" to try and draw ratings. In response, AEW snarkily adopted the name "Blood & Guts" for their gruesome version of the WarGames match format^note.

Sports

From Australian Rules Football: In their early days, Richmond Football Club didn't have an official nickname. However, their colors of yellow and black inspired fan cries of "Eat 'em alive, Tigers!", and eventually the club adopted "Tigers" as their nickname. The "Yellow and black!" interjection in Richmond's theme song was also created by the fans.
The Ashes, a major roughly biennial Cricket tournament between England and Australia, was named after a satirical obituary posted in a newspaper after Australia's first victory against England on an English ground in 1882, declaring that English Cricket had died and "the ashes taken to Australia".
The history of the Brooklyn Dodgers has two examples of this:
- In the late 1800s, fans of the Brooklyn Bridegrooms (seriously), were derisively referred to as Trolley Dodgers by the pre-dominantly more well-to-do fans of the archrival New York Giants, because in order to reach Bridegrooms' ballpark, it was necessary to cross a series of perilous trolley tracks. The Brooklyn fans took it as a badge of honor in a way, as did the team, adopting it as an unofficial nickname until they officially changed it to the Trolley Dodgers in 1911, then shortened it just to the Dodgers.
- Even with the new name, the Dodgers were consistently awful, and so Brooklynites eventually came to call them "the Bums," as in "Dem Bums lose again?" Starting around the 1940s, though, the Dodgers actually started to get good (albeit only ever winning a World Series once), but Brooklyn fans kept calling them "Dem Bums."
The Pittsburgh baseball team in the National League was commonly called the Alleghenys until they signed away a player from the cross-state Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association. An A.A. official denounced their actions as "piratical", so the club decided that being known as the "Pirates" was a good way of tweaking the other league.
Originally, the Iowa State University teams were known as the Cardinals. After the football team scored a decisive victory over Northwestern, the Chicago Tribune reported the outcome with the headline "Struck by a Cyclone." Iowa State teams have been the Cyclones ever since, though their mascot is still a cardinal (named "Cy").
North Carolina State University football players were once derisively described in a newspaper, following a rowdy after-game party, as having all the manners of a "pack of wolves." Fast forward a couple decades, and the official nickname of the NC State athletic program is the Wolfpack.
The mascot of the Brazilian Association Football club Flamengo is a vulture, which is what rivals called their mostly poor and black fans. One fan brought a buzzard to a championship final in 1969 and the team won a title, leading Flamengo's direction to embrace it.
The official mascot of Palmeiras is a parakeet, but fans prefer a pig as their mascot and they like to call themselves pigs. This dates back to when "pig" was a common derogatory term for the Italians that created the team, and popularized even further in 1969 when fans of rival Corinthians did not take well that after an incident where two of their players died in a car crash, Palmeiras' president voted to not allow the players to be replaced, an attitude deemed as "pig spirit" (a local expression for being nasty and mean-spirited). Eventually the club started to use both animals as mascots, even though supporters of other teams still use the pig as an insult.
The team Coritiba is usually referred to as "Coxa" ("Thigh"), the team was founded by German immigrants and a common insult (especially during World War 2, when Brazil fought against Nazi Germany) was to call the players "Coxa-Branca" ("White thigh"). It's very common for the team just be called "Coxa" by supporters, rivals, and neutrals alike (although the official name is still "Coritiba Foot Ball Club").
The 1972 Miami Dolphins got the "No-Name Defense" name given to them by Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry, who couldn't name anyone on the defensive side of the ball. The defense was number-one ranked in the league and helped the Dolphins achieve the only perfect season in the Super Bowl era.
While in Japan, Hideki Matsui got the nickname "Godzilla" from the Japanese media because of his skin problems. His powerful bat soon took over and made it a point of pride, something which stuck around when he moved across the Pacific and joined the New York Yankees in 2003.
Mixed Martial Arts nicknames sometimes are these:
- Nick "the Goat" Thompson was once called "The Fainting Goat" because he was so easily knocked out in practice. Once he toughened up, it got shortened to "the Goat" and became an Artifact Title.
- Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon "Bones" Jones received his nickname from his high school football coach because the lanky Jones was too skinny for his defensive linesman position.
The Tottenham Hotspur Football Club has a rather large Jewish fanbase, leading to rivals referring to their Jewish fans as "Yids". In a show of solidarity, Tottenham fans decided to take that name for all their fans, Jewish and non-Jewish. In spite of some controversy, they still refer to each other as "Yid", "Yiddo", and "Yidette", and the fanbase itself as the "Yid Army".
The Mexican soccer club C.D. Guadalajara are often referred to as "Las Chivas del Guadalajara" (The Goats of Guadalajara) and other times as "Las Chivas Locas" (the crazy goats), to the point that a goat has become their mascot. This was started when a commentator in a game described the playstyle of the team as "Running around like a bunch of crazy goats".
Spain's Club Atlético de Madrid adopted the moniker "Los Indios" ("The Indians") derisively handed to them by fans of rival squad Real Madrid due to the number of South American players in Atlético's roster at the time. Further driving the point home, the team's current mascot is Indi, a raccoon who wears the team's shirt and a red and white (the club's colors) Native American-inspired headdress.
In Italy, fans of Verona's traditional top football club, Hellas Verona, regularly insulted fans of ChievoVerona, another club in that city that was then stuck in Italy's lower levels, with a chant that roughly translates to "donkeys will fly before Chievo makes it to Serie A". When Chievo made it to Serie A for the first time in 2001, its fans immediately called their team Mussi Volante, local dialect for "Flying Donkeys". (Unfortunately, Chievo went under in 2021.)
In American Football, Ed "Too Tall" Jones was a defensive end drafted #1 overall by the Dallas Cowboys and he would go on to become a franchise cornerstone during the team's 1970s dynasty. Standing at 6'9" (2.06m), Jones was initially considered "too tall" to play football and originally went to college on a basketball scholarship. The football coach gave him a chance, however, and Jones would move to football full-time after two seasons.
The Carolina Hurricanes of the NHL are known for having on-ice celebrations following victories, which would eventually lead to commentator Don Cherry referring to the team as a “bunch of jerks”. Official merchandise for the team featuring that phrase and the team logo appeared the very next day.
Extremely common among Argentine association football teams, with many insulting or mocking nicknames for a team or their fans becoming an affectionate nickname used by themselves. Notably, River Plate are "chickens", Boca Juniors are "manure-men", Rosario Central are "scoundrels" and Newell's Old Boys are "lepers"
Fans of the Green Bay Packers are often called “cheeseheads”. You think it pays homage to Wisconsin's history of dairy production but in fact, it originated as an insult from a 1987 game between the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers. Instead, it came to be a statewide source of pride.
The elephant logo of the Athletics MLB franchise began as this. When Connie Mack founded the Philadelphia Athletics a rival manager, John McGraw, told him his franchise was a white elephant. A white elephant was/is a slang term for an unprofitable and ultimately financially draining endeavor. Mack took the joke in stride and came up with the elephant logo.
Boxer Earnie Shavers was dubbed "The Acorn" for his bald head. But acorns are nothing if not tough, and Shavers was a notoriously heavy hitter, so it stuck. The man who gave him that name, Muhammad Ali, went on to say that Shavers was the hardest puncher he'd ever fought.

Tabletop Games

BattleTech. Clan Sea Fox changed its name to Clan Diamond Shark after a rival Clan introduced the Shark into the Sea Fox habitat and killed 75% of the population.
- Subverted: The Clan made sure to preserve and relocate the Sea Foxes that remained, and by the turn of the 32nd century, enough Sea Foxes had re-emerged that Diamond Shark changed their name back to Sea Fox.
Eclipse Phase: the faction known as the scum got their name when a group of survivors deserted by a corporation were denied the chance to return to civilisation by the boss of another habitat with a phrase along the lines of "get these scum off my station". His subordinates looked at him, then looked at the others, then gave their boss the chance to attain oneness with the universe, specifically the part just outside the airlock, and that's how the faction started.
Magic: The Gathering: On the plane Tarkir, "Sar-khan" is a word that can mean "Great-Khan," "Sky-Khan," and "Khan-Of-Khans"; essentially, it means ruler of the world. It's explicitly an absurd title that no even the most egotistical warlord would ever try to claim. The planeswalker named Sarkhan Vol was given the name sarcastically to mock what the giver saw as delusions of grandeur, but he chose to use it as his name anyway despite being, in the sight of his clan, a half-mad vagabond obsessed with old legends.
Ugin: "Sarkhan"? They bow to you?
Sarkhan Vol: No, but I bow to no one.
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The title "Mortarch" belongs to the most powerful undead beings in the Mortal Realms, and is usually bestowed by Nagash, Supreme God of Undeath, on his lieutenants. Ushoran, the Monster Progenitor of the Flesh-Eater Courts, was given his title of "Mortarch of Delusion" as an insult, during his imprisonment by Nagash; the "Mortarch" was little more than on oversized blood bag deluding himself into thinking he was still a mighty king. After escaping his captivity, however, he began a quest to unite the scattered Ghoul Courts under his banner, embracing the title and declaring war on his former master. Much to the chagrin of the other Mortarchs and Nagash, the once-mocked Mortarch of Delusion now has the power, armies, and reputation to back his title up.

Toys

Beast Wars: Uprising: Wanna-be gang leader Gnashteeth is given a beatdown by Thunderhoof and Terrorsaur, who responds to a dramatic threat Gnash gives that he must think he's Megatron. A few weeks later, after Gnashteeth has ruined and murdered Thunderhoof, he decides the name Megatron suits him, yes.
BIONICLE: After being called a "Piraka" (an in-universe obscenity meaning "thief and murderer"), Vezok decides he likes the term, and he and the other Skakdi trying to steal the Mask of Life start calling themselves the Piraka.

Video Games

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Members of the 444th penal squadron have their tail art painted over with "scratches" or "sin lines" indicating the severity of their crime. Trigger is the only one to have three. Once he's served his sentence, he has the iconography incorporated into his new tail art, since friend and foe alike already recognize it. By the end of the war, takeoff sequences show the Nom de Guerre Three Strikes with his actual TAC name in parentheses.
Arknights: One of Zima's Archive Files mentions that a gang of rival delinquents used to mockingly call her "General", based on a common Ursus stereotype that generals are incompetent and untrustworthy. After she successfully beat them and became the undisputed top dog of her school, however, her followers took to calling her "General Zima" as a show of respect.
Blue Archive: Hoshino called the mysterious man trying to recruit her "Black Suit" because he wears a black suit. By the time Sensei meets him, he's grown to like the name enough to take it as his own.
Bounty of One: Tom is a Wild West Armadillo Sheriff who loves the new title that The Undertaker gave him, "Simple Tom". In his case, he's too dumb to even realize it's an insult.
Winston Churchill famously referred to the Soviet Union's conquests in eastern Europe as an "iron curtain". This becomes the name of a Soviet superweapon in the Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series.
Cute Bite: The origin of Buttercup's name, since Saule, who names her, gets it from the Old Master calling pre-Buttercup as "my little buttercup".
Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening:
- When they first meet, Lady, having discarded her birth name Mary, tells Dante she doesn't have a name and to call her whatever he wants, to which Dante retorts, "Whatever, lady." At the end of the game, she embraces "Lady" as her name, telling her father that "Mary died a long time ago."
- Dante decides to name his shop Devil May Cry after an off-the-cuff response by Lady to him crying over Vergil's fate.
Dragon Age:
- Anders, who is first introduced in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, refused to speak when he was initially brought to the Circle as a child. Not knowing his true name, other apprentices started to call him "the Ander" because of his Anders heritage. This became the only name he later uses.
- In Dragon Age II, many residents of Kirkwall use "Dog Lord" as a slur against refugees from Ferelden, a reference to Fereldan culture's deep-seated love of Mabari hounds. In Act II, Hawke encounters a Fereldan expat street gang called the Dog Lords. (Incidentally, the Dog Lords are probably the toughest of the gangs encountered in Act II...because they're backed up by Mabari.)
- During Mask of the Assassin, after Hawke asks Varric why they never got a nickname, depending on their personality, he suggests "Waffles" and "Killer" for paragon Hawke and renegade Hawke. Snarky Hawke on the other hand, admits to genuinely liking "Chuckles".
- The Trespasser DLC in Dragon Age: Inquisition reveals that Solas's true name actually is Solas. Fen'Harel was an insult used by his enemies, and he took up the name as a badge of pride.
The Elder Scrolls:
- Mannimarco, known as "the King of Worms", is a legendary Lich/Necromancer who makes several appearances in the series. The term was originally meant as an insult by his Arch-Enemy, Galerion, but was adopted by Mannimarco with pride. (As a result of the Warp in the West, he sort of ascends to godhood, and is known as the "God of Worms".)
- The Renrijra Krin, a quasi-legal nationalist faction of Khajiit introduced in Oblivion. The name translates as something like 'Mercenary's Grin', 'Laugh of the Landless', or 'Smiling Scum', and was first applied to them by their enemies, but it amused them enough for them to make it their own.
- The Stormcloak faction in Skyrim was derisively referred to as such for following Ulfric Stormcloak's beliefs. They took that name in pride.
- Nords, as a race, take titles in lieu of surnames. Many of them aren't complimentary and are presumably examples of this trope. Some examples: Halfhand, the Braggart, the Mumbling, God-Hater, the Contemptible, the Ugly, the Worm.
In Fable II you get to meet a woman named Hannah who is nicknamed "Sister Hammer" by the monks of the Temple of Light because of her Brawn Hilda aspect and strength. After her father, the abott, is killed and she joins the main character as the hero of strength, she takes the name in stride.
Monk: Sister Hannah...
Hammer: Call me HAMMER.
Fallout: New Vegas has Novac's resident Cloudcuckoolander and Conspiracy Theorist No-Bark Noonan. He was given that name because "not all of his dogs are barking" after being stung in the head by Radscorpions, but he uses it himself because he thinks it's a compliment on how he's "no bark, all bite". There may be some truth to that given that he's often the only one in town who more or less knows what's going on.
Final Fantasy XV Episode Gladiolus reveals that Cor "The Immortal" Leonis is a case of this. Thirty years prior to the events of the game, Cor was a brash, hotheaded Crownsguard recruit with a nodachi and the belief that he could handle anything. The Crownsguard discovered the "Trial of Gilgamesh", a test given by the Blademaster to judge the Shield of the King. Nobody had come out of the trial alive before Cor went in, thinking he was tough enough to handle it. He came out ass-first, sans nodachi.
Cor: I was cast out in defeat, my hubris laid bare for all to see. "You really are immortal", they said - and it stuck.
The title character of Ghostrunner was nicknamed Jack by the resistance because when they found him, one of them, Diego, remarked that he was "all jacked up". As the game progresses, Jack grows more and more attached to this name, to the point where when the Architect loses it in the final level and raves about how he won't beaten by a "mere tool", the Ghostrunner responds, "My name is Jack" before killing him.
The title protagonist of Mad Rat Dead initially has No Name Given. Heart eventually starts calling him Mad Rat due to his one-track mind driven by revenge, which leads to Mad Rat adopting it as his actual name.
Mass Effect:
- The first example ever used in Mass Effect? Your helmsman, Jeff 'Joker' Moreau. He got the nickname in flight school for his habit of never smiling (he suffers from Osteogenesis imperfecta, which probably didn't help). He adopted the nickname after graduating, and now everyone apart from EDI (until the latter end of Mass Effect 3) and Dr Chakwas (who knows him well enough/is professional enough to stick to his real first name) uses the nickname when talking to or about him. One would think a 'morose' joke would have been too intelligent, given he becomes a wonderful barrel of snark and incidental humour.
- The term Reapers was originally bestowed by the Protheans since they never learned the true name of their enemy. Notably, the Reapers never actually refer to themselves as Reapers. Harbinger occasionally uses the phrase "that which you know as 'Reapers'" to refer to their race, but this phrasing still makes it clear he doesn't consider the name valid. The Catalyst, controller and creator of the Reapers, does use the term, probably simply out of convenience, using terms that Shepard will understand.
  Sovereign: "Reaper". A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they chose to call us is irrelevant. We simply... are.
- The Illusive Man in Mass Effect 2. He derives his name from a vitriolic response from an Alliance official to his anti-alien manifesto ("survivalist rhetoric written by an illusive man"). The version of Illusive he uses means deceptive. It also sounds like Elusive, which might be the point, or not.
- Legion also has an Appropriated Appellation, given to him by EDI.
  Shepard: So what should I call you?
  Geth Construct: Geth.
  Shepard: No, I mean you. Specifically.
  Geth Construct: We are all geth.
  Shepard: What is the individual in front of me called?
  Geth Construct: There is no individual. We are all geth. There are currently 1,183 programs active within this platform.
  EDI: "My name is Legion, for we are many."
  Legion: Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor. We are Legion, a terminal of the geth.
- Not scorn per se, but "EDI" stands for Enhanced Defense Intelligence, simply a label of her function. As EDI's character developed, it just sorta... became her name.
- Partial example: when Tali gets tried for treason during her loyalty mission, the Admiralty Board legally has her ship name changed to "vas Normandy," believing that being associated with a human ship (and having a human captain represent her instead of a quarian) would hurt her chances of avoiding exile. Whether it works, backfires, or leads in an unexpected direction is up to the player. Later on, if you earn Tali's loyalty, she lets the name stick.
- In the second game, Legion explains that "Sovereign" was just a title used by Saren. When it communicated with the Geth, the millions of programs that comprised the Reaper instead referred to themself as "Nazara". Though, when Shepard talks to the Reaper itself, it explicitly refers to itself as Sovereign. So Legion is either lying, or it uses different names for different groups, or it's a continuity error, or Nazara simply liked the name and took it for itself.
  Sovereign: There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign.
A variant occurs in Overwatch with a character's catchphrase as opposed to their name. In the tie-in comic for the Uprising event when Tracer first joins the team being sent in, Torbjörn dryly remarks, "Looks like the cavalry's here." Lena liked the way it sounded so much, she adopted it for herself.
In Roots of Pacha, Jag's name means "weak" in his old clan's language, and the leader gave it to him when he refused to steal food from a travelling family. After Jag was kicked out of the Rallor clan, he eventually takes his name in stride since it reminds him that he did the right thing to that family back then.
In RuneScape, Arrav originally lacked a name, having been found abandoned as a small child by the tribe that would soon found Varrock. He took the name Arrav from a goblin curse word that goblins yelled at him after constantly losing battles against him.
- Later on in the questlines, players find that Zaros, the ancient dark god of fate and control, is called the "Empty Lord" by both his loyal followers and his enemies. His followers admire him for being "empty" of the petty grudges and agendas that drive the younger gods. His enemies call him out for his "empty" promises.
This is the story behind the nickname of the title character of Sally Face. His actual name is Sal but the bullies started calling him "Sally Face". Sal in turn decided to own the nickname so that it couldn't be used against him anymore, and actually tells people to call him Sally Face if they want to.
Gaichû from Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong. His name means "vermin" in Japanese, reflecting that, having been transformed into a ghoul he's considered subhuman vermin by the Japanese Imperial State.
Dr. Eggman in Sonic the Hedgehog. While his name has always been Eggman in Japanese, he was Dr. Ivo Robotnik in Western localizations prior to Sonic Adventure, which introduced "Eggman" as an insult the heroes would use on him. Since Sonic Adventure 2, he's since adopted the name as his own, and Sonic Frontiers has him bragging about how he took a name given to him in mockery and turned it into a name that inspires fear. Curiously, the name Robotnik was used as the surname of his grandfather and cousin even in Japanese, but official Japanese bios list Eggman's real name as "unknown". Just don't expect him to do the same thing with "Baldy McNosehair". His dignity has limits.
Super Robot Wars: Original Generation refers to the assault on the White Star as "Operation SRW". While an official meaning for the acronym is never given, Ascended Fanboy Ryusei announces that it must mean - you guessed it - "Super Robot Wars!"
- There's also Ibis Douglas, whose partner/rival dubbed her "Shooting Star" because of her tendency to get shot down during training exercises. When her boss finds out, he mentions that it's a great name for someone who dreams of exploring space. She finally accepts the nickname during her "No More Holding Back" Speech, which is accompanied by a theme song of the same name.
- The Alteisen's name. For those of you who are unaware it translates as old/pig iron which is a low-quality metal. In-universe the Alteisen is considered old-fashioned for not using Extra Over Technology (some very advanced technology that has been reverse-engineered). The name stuck.
Tyranny: The Disfavored were an enemy army that defected to Kyros after they were defeated, and were given the name as mockery by the Overlord's other armies. They accepted the appellation because they came to see their disfavor of having once fought the Overlord as a challenge to be overcome through loyal service. At the start of the game, the Disfavored have abandoned whatever old name they once had in the Northern Empire and their symbol is their old banner with three scars marring out whatever was once underneath; having a somewhat open Inferiority Superiority Complex about their origins is kind of their shtick.
In the Warcraft universe, the orphaned son of Orc chieftain Durotan was raised as a gladiator by a sadistic human who only called him "Thrall" (slave). He kept his name even after gaining his freedom, rising to the position of Warchief of the entire Orcish Horde, and learning his birthname (Go'el) from his grandmother.

Visual Novels

Nikolai Stirling in Queen of Thieves is known by both the press and the Paris underworld as "Thief Lord." In his first season, he explains that it was originally a mocking nickname he was tagged with when he was still new to Paris, as the more seasoned criminals of the Underbelly felt he was far too arrogant and full of himself for a homeless teenage pickpocket. Once he formed the Gilded Poppy and began pulling off more and more audacious heists, he was regarded with more respect, until newcomers to the community didn't even realize it was supposed to have been a joke.

Webcomics

Subverted in Angels 2200 when the six girls of Icebreaker Squad in all receive scornful call signs that are either disparaging or ironic comments on their characters: "Hammer", (the vacillating leader), "Quetzalcoatl" (The Neidermeyer), "Whiskey" (the Hard-Drinking Party Girl), "Bubblegum" (as in: can't walk and chew it at the same time), "Loser" (self-explanatory), and "Kid" (The Ingenue). It does NOT help them bond as a team, and their attempts to "make these names their own" just makes it worse.
Awful Hospital: Cheryl's dog has no clear name, but he thinks of himself as "Nobad", as his owner is constantly reprimanding him ("NO. BAD.").
In Drowtales, "Tainted" was originally an insult towards Drow who failed to control a summoned demon and got infected/partially possessed by it. Then some started to do this deliberately to gain immunity against full possession. They were derided and persecuted to some degree but eventually adopted "Tainted" as their designation.
In Earthsong, the villain takes his name from one of his first victims. He calls him "beluosis," or "full of monsters."
In El Goonish Shive, Elliot's female Superhero form is dubbed "Cheerleadra" by Internet users. This is learned mere seconds after Justin compares her skirt to a cheerleading outfit in a TV interview.
Foreach: The unfortunate angel in Hellfuck had no need for a name until she met a couple strangers who asked to know what to call her:
Names aren't common, down here.
Closest thing I have is what he calls me.
Nothing, or nobody, or NIX.
The Oathbreakers from Modest Medusa rebelled against their new leadership (breaking their oath doing so) and took the name for themselves. They apply it to people they recruit, even when there's no oath involved.
Out-of-Placers: Done unintentionally by the human-obsessed indrel that Kass and Elim bring back to Val Salia. She initially wanted to go by "Yanoisyskank" after a human called her that, mistaking it as a name. Isher came up with Yannit as a shortened form, which she decides to go with.
Questionable Content: "Yay Newfriend" took the name after being addressed this way, impressed by the the speaker's cheerfulness and friendliness.
Zebra Girl: When returning home at the end of the Subfusc arc, Sandra is talking with some kind of insectoid customs officer who can't say the name "Sandra" and keeps calling her "Zzzandra", so she says her name is "Zandra" to get by it. The news posts suggest she likes it and will be using "Zandra" from now on.

Web Original

Parodied in CollegeHumor's "We Are Douchebags."
Inverted in Dis Raps For Hire. In one video where he takes on some homophobes, Epic Lloyd tries to reclaim "faggot" as an insult'', using it against homophobes.
Epic Tales has the villain Sponge who was given the name by the newspapers. It seems to have stuck, as the following story has her referred to as such.
Homestar Runner's The Cheat got his name when Homestar pledged to "uncover that CHEAT!" in the original book.
Jimquisition ended up with a case of this. After the "epic meltdown of the Slaughtering Grounds developer", Jim started calling themself Jim Fucking Sterling, Son, which was an insult thrown at them in the developer's review of their review. ("I don't need to fix that^note because I'm Jim fucking Sterling, son!") They've since made it into a catchphrase, and at one point their Twitter name was "JimFnSterlingSon".
Pirates SMP: Many of Jojo's peers on the Isles refer to her boat as an "eyesore" at first glance, noting how the bright lime green sails^note(due to dye colour limitations) of the ship clash with the bright pink cherry-wood trim and garish orange acacia-wood hull. Jojo soon adopts the title and names her boat "the S.S. Eyesore", even after she gets a nicer hull and some custom dye for her sails to make the green look less bright and match her outfit more.
Jojo: I don't get it, but you know, when other people are naming it that, I feel like you just have to accept it.
Sailor Nothing is disparagingly called as such by one of her first opponents (that we see, at least), and shortly after approves of it enough to adopt it as her title.
The SCP Foundation's SCP-1370 is an omnicidal but utterly harmless mini-robot that gives itself luridly grandiose titles like RoboLord the Destructor. In a Not So Above It All moment, researchers found out that it will adopt almost any name that's spoken with enough feigned horror.
Database Entry: ...Foundation staff have successfully introduced Patheticon the Garglemost and PesterBot to its lexicon.
Yelizaveta 'Bounce' Volkova of Survival of the Fittest version four. She picked up the nickname after somebody shared the sentiment that they'd 'Seen bouncier rocks'.
USHANKA SHOW had a hater comment lambasting the creator's pen name Sergei Sputnikoff for being so stereotypically Soviet, and said it would be like an American calling himself "John Wayne Cheeseburger". Sergei took a liking to that name and started calling himself John Wayne Cheeseburger with pride, even making it something of an alter ego.

Western Animation

Adventure Time:
- In the Season 2 episode "Susan Strong", the eponymous character unwittingly names herself when Finn asks her what her name is, and she's still struggling with the word "Sun": "Suh... Sun." During the events of the "Islands" miniseries, she regains her memories of her life before coming to Ooo, including her real name, "Kara." She ultimately decides to keep her name as "Susan."
- Princess Bubblegum's royal status is later revealed to have stemmed from a condescending nickname that she got from her uncle Gumbald.
Arcane has Jinx, whose birth name was Powder. As a kid, she was The Jinx, with her adopted brother Mylo never passing up the chance to remind her that she's often the reason for something going wrong, with even Vi calling her a "jinx" after Powder gets the rest of their family killed. When she's adopted by Silco after that event, she adopts Jinx as her new name, though she treated it more as a nickname until she accidentally kills Silco at the end of the first season, at which point she refuses to be called anything other than Jinx.
Arthur:
- The band "U Stink" got their name like this.
- Arthur would sometimes state that the initials of his little sister D.W.'s name stood for "Disaster Warning." In "Sue Ellen Gets Her Goose Cooked," D.W. played Virtual Goose under the username DisasterWarning99.
The being that creates Battleworld in season 4 of Avengers Assemble always responds that he is "from beyond" whenever he's asked who he is, prompting Ms. Marvel to label him the Beyonder, which he likes and adopts for himself.
Batman: The Animated Series
- Harleen Quinzel is jokingly addressed as Harley Quinn before becoming a villain.
- The Creeper gets the idea for his nickname from being called "creep", which he finds catchy but a little lacking. Before that, he tried for "Yellow-skinned Wacky Man!" before switching.
- Sid the Squid was given this nickname as a mocking joke by his buddies who thought he was worthless as a crook. It became a badge of honor after he almost killed Batman and made a fool of the Joker.
Robin from The Batman (2004) took his alias from a nickname his mother gave him, which he initially resented. If you're wondering, the Golden Age origin of the name was Dick paying tribute to Robin Hood. Hence the green outfit, shirt lacing, and so forth.
The titular Blue Eye Samurai, Mizu, is not a samurai—she is of thoroughly ignoble birth as a mixed-race child of an unknown woman and a foreign white man, and she isn't in service to any feudal lord either. People simply call her that because she acts like a Rōnin, traveling from place to place with an extremely high level of skill in wielding a katana. When Ringo becomes disillusioned and says that her behavior is un-samurai-like, Mizu points out that she never claimed to be one in the first place.
The Bratz get their name from Kirstee and Kaycee in Bratz: Rock Angelz.
In Codename: Kids Next Door, the tradition of numerical codenames dates back to the KND's original founder, Numbuh 0, when his brother told him he had zero chance of standing up to Grandfather.
Defied in Danny Phantom. The press calls Danny "Inviso-Bill" and Danny hates it. He does everything he can to get people to call him "Danny Phantom" instead, finally succeeding in the first movie.
When the army of Katolis prepares for war in The Dragon Prince, the newly-crowned King Viren allows those unwilling to fight to lay down their arms, but commands that they wear the sigil of a broken chain link to signify themselves as deserters. When those same "deserters" show up as part of the army of Duren's Big Damn Heroes moment against Viren's troops, they carry banners bearing that self-same broken chain.
In Dragons: Race to the Edge, although villain Viggo Grimborn claims that his ancestors created the Dragon Eye that inspired Hiccup to set up the titular outpost when Hiccup reveals what he calls the device, Viggo decides that he likes the name and decides to use it in future.
Crash Nebula in the Show Within a Show on The Fairly OddParents!. The students at his school insulted him by saying he "crashed the Nebula", the Nebula being an experimental weapon/spacesuit. Sprig Speevak decided to make this his superhero name, Crash Nebula.
Invisibo from the Freakazoid! episode of the same name was initially known as Ahmon Kor-Unch but was named "Invisibo" by Freakazoid because they already had title cards made up and everything. The villain accepts his new name because he likes it and admits that it has a somewhat sinister ring to it.
In Gravity Falls, Dipper admits that beneath his hat is a birthmark he does not want anyone to see. This Distinguishing Mark on his forehead is a perfect likeness of a constellation: The Big Dipper. He explains that other kids teased him about this until he grew to accept the name Dipper. Now he is Only Known by His Nickname.
Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids: In "The Rise and Fall of the Evil Guff", Bart is called "The Evil Guff" by a policeman when he first starts using his foul farts to make people let him have his way and later calls himself The Evil Guff when he attempts to use a television broadcast to blackmail the entire world into giving him everything he wants.
Hazbin Hotel: The titular hotel was originally known as the Happy Hotel until the pilot, in which Alastor insultingly refers to it as a "has-been" hotel and changes the sign to Hazbin. Charlie keeps the rename while still taking pride in it, likely because it just sounds more marketable and honest. After all, the hotel takes in people who either are or feel like "has-beens" such as Sir Pentious, a wannabe villain, and Husk, a former Overlord.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021):
- After transforming for the first time, Adam is referred to as 'some kind of He-Man' by Krass.
- In this series, Cringer is not a Lovable Coward, but a wise Team Dad and Technical Pacifist. He was given the name Cringer by Evil Poacher R'Qazz because of how he could intimidate the cat and because he wouldn't fight in his Beastly Bloodsports. When R'Qazz meets Cringer again, he wonders why Cringer kept the demeaning name.
  Cringer: There is no shame in refusing to fight. I'd rather be called Cringer over "Killer" any day.
- Duncan is a variation; he gets his name from a title his enemy boasted of having. When his former mentor Kronis boasted of being the former Man-At-Arms for Eternos, Duncan declares himself Man-At-Arms for Castle Greyskull shortly before beating him.
In Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the Origins Episode "Mouse from Another House" establishes that Mighty Mouse got his name from a remark his adoptive father made about his powers.
- In the original short "The Cat's Tale," a cat now traumatized by mice, has an origin story. The infant mouse taken in by an elderly couple displays a healthy appetite, innate strength, and ability to fly. As his foster father comments, "He's no ordinary mouse...he's a mighty mouse!"
Cat: Yes, and from that day on he became known to all his friends as Mighty Mouse!
King from The Owl House got his name this way, as revealed in "Echoes of the Past". After Eda took him home, he started making statues out of random things and marching around, causing Eda to jokingly call him "a king amongst his subjects".
The Patrick Star Show: In "Get Off My Lawnie", Granny Tentacles insults the Patrick Show's audience ("You people are sick!" and "Don't you people have lives?"). The fanbase thinks it's her Catchphrase and loves it, proudly wearing shirts that say "Sick Person" and "I Have No Life" with Granny Tentacles' face on them.
In the Rick and Morty episode "Mortynight Run", Rick mocks the cloud alien that Morty saved by calling him a "mind-reading fart". The alien however likes the name Fart and then on prefers himself to be called that, despite Morty's protests and much to the amusement of Rick.
In a G.I. Joe skit on Robot Chicken, a new recruit is given the name Fumbles after slipping on his spilled soda. This leads him to defect to COBRA for the sake of revenge. Unfortunately for the Joes, "Fumbles" happens to be a Badass Bookworm Cold Sniper who is capable of single-handedly killing them all. Even better, at the end of the sketch, Cobra Commander is so impressed that he wants to give the sniper a much better nickname, only for him to coldly respond "It's Fumbles. It's always been Fumbles."
Samurai Jack: "Jack" is not his name, but rather a slang term like "man", "guy", or "dude" that he was called by the first people he encountered in the future.
Jack: They call me... "Jack".
At least four villains from The Spectacular Spider-Man get their names in this manner.
- Adrian Toomes points out to potential victim Norman Osborn, that he's "not Toomes now, I'm what you called me, the Vulture!" Osborn sneeringly replies that he called Toomes a buzzard, and that Toomes can't even get the name right.
- Max Dillon, super-powered accident victim, is nicknamed Electro in the course of Spider-Man's battle banter. Later, Dillon rants that since there is no cure for his condition, he is no longer Max Dillon. "I'm... what'd you call me? I'm Electro!"
- Meek, submissive Otto Octavius is bullied by his boss Norman Osborn, who adds insult to injury by calling him "Doctor Octopus", a name Otto considers demeaning. One radioactive Freak accident later, he is demanding to be called the same, after delivering a ranting smackdown to both his boss and Spider-Man. Likewise Doc Ock's team, the "Sinister Six," is named by The Daily Bugle.
- "I have been called many names in my life. My favorite is Tombstone..." "Big Man" may or may not be one of them.
Slugterra: When meeting Dr. Blakk for the first time, Eli decries his mutated slug as a "ghoul". Blakk likes the name so much that he makes it the standard nomenclature, and pretty soon everyone in Slugterra refers to them as such.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Clone Cadets", the clone trooper CT-4040 has an argument with a drill sergeant during which he's called a cut-up. CT-4040 decides that he likes this name and calls himself Cutup from then on.
Superman: The Animated Series
- As seen in other adaptations, Lois Lane also names Superman here. After discussing the new hero at the Daily Planet, Lois sums up with "A regular superman," referring to him metaphorically as being the embodiment of the Nietzschean ideal. Perry quickly agrees that this is what they should call him. Clark, who is in the room, is surprised at first but likes the name by the time everyone leaves.
- A degraded Superman clone gets his name when Lex Luthor's henchwoman describes him as being "Bizarro!"
- After Rudy Jones botches an attempt at stealing toxic waste, his accomplice Marty calls him a "stupid little parasite". After the exposure to the toxic waste turns Rudy into an energy draining supervillain, he starts calling himself Parasite.
The SuperThings: Rivals of Kaboom - Kazoom Power episode "The Name of a Hero" focuses on the Kazoom Kids trying to figure out their hero names, which they each unlock separately:
- Multy gains hers after Mighty Moo is impressed by her multitool abilities, calling her "multicapable".
- Kid Fury picks his when Cerealiak talks about how furious he is after his defeat.
- Kid Kazoom, the last to pick his name, ends up deciding on it after witnessing the Kazoom canister on Enigma's monitor, realizing that his new Kazoom Kid form looks just like it.
"Titan?" "That's what the Earth people call us!" "I like it! Engage... Sym-Bionic Titan"
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
- Mikey names almost all of the villains they go up against. Some of them like their names enough to start using them themselves, such as Pizza Face and Rocksteady (contrasting Bebop, who hates his new name).
- Y'Gthgba is a name he has difficulty pronouncing, so Raphael suggests nicknaming his Love Interest after the most beautiful woman in art, Mona Lisa. She accepts it, mostly because of the flattering origin.
In Transformers: Animated, Nino Sexton adopted the name Nanosec after a throwaway comment from a bank teller after his first heist.
- Slight subversion: Grimlock named himself after Megatron bemoans his "prospects are grim, locked in this prison of a lab."
- Wreck-Gar gets his name from Angry Archer's abbreviating what he previously called himself, "worthless-wreck-walking-pile-of-garbage".
In the season 2 premiere of Transformers: Prime, Megatron claims to Orion Pax that the term "Decepticon" was meant as a demonizing insult by the Autobots, which they took for their own.
Megatron: For if speaking the truth is deception, then we are gladly guilty.
Ultimate Spider-Man: Miles Morales tries to decide a new codename for himself to not be confused with Peter Parker after he ends up stranded in Peter's dimension. After going through several bad names, Doctor Octopus mockingly calls him Spider-Man's "Kid Arachnid", and Miles takes a liking to it.
Young Justice:
- The Cave's computer detects an "unknown energy impulse" that turns out to be Bart Allen's time machine arriving:
  Beast Boy: Well, I think we found our "unknown energy impulse".
  Impulse: "Impulse"? That’s so crash! Catchy, dramatic, and one word!
- Arsenal got his name from Lex Luthor complimenting his "impressive arsenal".
- Ma'alefa'ak is both the name of a vicious Martian predator and a Fantastic Slur for White Martians. White Martian M'comm M'orzz uses it as a new title to terrify the oppressive Green and Red Martians.

Appropriated Appellation
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Appropriated Appellation 12 Following

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Other examples:

Video Example(s):

You Take It, And You Own It

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Index

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You Take It, And You Own It

Appropriated Appellation
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