Alexander the Great… Charles the Wise… Philip the Good…
When you die, that’s how you want to be remembered, but not everyone is so lucky. We’ve all had a nickname at one point or another that we hated and we all know the feeling – it seems like they followed us around forever.
Unfortunately, for the next ten people, that is, indeed, the case. They’ve been gone for hundreds, even thousands of years, and yet, the world still remembers them by their mortifying monikers.
10. The Slobberer
Alfonso IX was King of León and Galicia for over 40 years during the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1212, he founded the University of Salamanca, one of the oldest universities in the world still in operation. He also promoted democracy by establishing the earliest known parliamentary system in Europe – the Decreta of León. However, none of his efforts saved him from being remembered as Alfonso Baboso, aka Alfonso the Slobberer.
Apparently, the king was prone to fits of rage where he would foam at the mouth, hence the nickname. However, it should be noted that this particular trait of his was mainly pointed out by Muslim historians after his death. During his reign, King Alfonso took part in the Reconquista, the conflict between Christian kingdoms and Muslim caliphates intended to drive the latter away from the Iberian Peninsula. So maybe this was a way for the Muslim world to get the last laugh on the Slobberer.
9. The Do-Nothing
History is full of lazy, self-entitled royals who ignored their duties and used their positions mainly to lounge about in luxury. This means that you have to work extra hard at doing nothing if you are going to be immortalized for your indolence. Introducing Louis V of France which, technically, was still West Francia during his time in the 10th century. In France, the king is remembered as Louis le Fainéant, meaning Louis the Lazy or Louis the Loafer. In English, he became known as Louis the Do-Nothing.
Louis was named co-ruler as a teenager, while his father Lothair was still king. Then, when Lothair died in 986, the 20-year-old Louis became undisputed King of the Franks. His solo reign lasted a whopping one year before dying in a hunting accident. Because he had spent his time “indulging in all sorts of frivolities” instead of siring an heir, Louis died childless and ended his dynasty, thus triggering the start of France’s lost-lasting Capetian Dynasty.
8. Sea Onion-Head
Not even great rulers are immune to hurtful nicknames. Pericles was one of the most prominent and influential rulers of Ancient Greece. His actions earned him the auspicious moniker of “first citizen of Athens.” However, political enemies and ribald Athenian poets also had a less-flattering designation for him: Schinocephalos, translated as “sea onion-head” or “squill-head.”
This was due to the shape of Pericles’s head, which was said to resemble the bulb of the sea onion. But we will let Plutarch explain it:
“His physical features were almost perfect, the only exception being his head, which was rather long and out of proportion. For this reason almost all his portraits show him wearing a helmet, since the artists apparently did not wish to taunt him with this deformity.”
7. The Fratricide
If you think royal names can get a little confusing, wait ‘till you hear about the Berenguers from the House of Barcelona. During the early 11th century, Berenguer Ramon I was the Count of Barcelona. He had a son whom he named Ramon Berenguer I who, in turn, had twin boys in 1053, and he decided to name them Berenguer Ramon II and Ramon Berenguer II.
To make it easier, we could try to refer to them by their nicknames. Ramon Berenguer II was known as “Cap d’Estopes” or “the Towhead” due to his thick, light blond hair. Meanwhile, his brother had the more unpleasant moniker of “el Fratricida” – the Fratricide.
“Fratricide” refers to a person who murders their own brother or sister, so you might guess how Berenguer Ramon II gained his appellation. In 1075, the brothers succeeded their father as the new rulers of Catalonia, but neither one was the sharing kind. In 1082, Ramon Berenguer the Towhead was killed in the Spanish forests, on his way to Girona. His brother became sole ruler and, although his involvement in his sibling’s death was never proven, everyone thought he did it, so his new sobriquet of Berenguer Ramon the Fratricide followed him around for the rest of his life.
6. The Poorest Man in France
John II, Duke of Alençon, was a 15th-century French nobleman and one of the strongest supporters of Joan of Arc, fighting side by side with her against the English in the Loire Valley. For this, she bestowed upon him the praiseful moniker of “le Beau Duc” – the “Fair Duke.”
That sounds pretty good as far as nicknames go, but things weren’t always so rosy for the nobleman. His first military engagement proved disastrous for him. When he was only 15 years old, John fought at the Battle of Verneuil as part of the Hundred Years’ War. The conflict was a triumphant victory for the English, who took many French noblemen as captives, with John II among them.
The young duke was held prisoner for five years, until he was finally able to gather the exorbitant ransom that the English wanted for his release. But in order to scrape the money together, John had to sell pretty much everything he owned so, although he was now a free man, he was also a penniless man. And just to kick him while he was down, he then became mockingly known as “the poorest man in France.”
5. The Slit-Nosed
How would you feel if everyone called you by a nickname that reminded you of the most painful and most humiliating thing that ever happened to you? Well, that was the fate of Justinian II, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire during the late 7th century. In 695, after a 10-year reign, Emperor Justinian was deposed by one of his generals named Leontios.
Strangely enough, Leontios decided not to assassinate his former master. Instead, Justinian was exiled and, as a reminder of his ordeal, he had his nose cut off. Before you start feeling any sympathy for him, know that Justinian II was a cruel tyrant hated by the public, so as he was paraded through the streets, the people started jeering him with cries of “Cut-Nose! Cut-Nose!”
And thus, he became known as Justinian Rhinotmetus, or Justinian the Slit-Nosed. He had the last laugh, though. While in exile, Justinian had a golden nose fitted to hide his disfigurement. He then raised an army and, ten years after losing the throne, he retook Constantinople and had those who plotted against him beheaded in public.
4. Ship-Breast
The Vikings were not only imaginative but also direct when it came to nicknames. Most of them had something to do with a physical attribute of the person being named. Erik Thorvaldsson, for example, one of the most prominent Norse explorers in history, had a red beard and red hair, so he was known as Erik the Red. Ok, maybe not the most creative appellation in the world, but we’re not here to talk about Erik the Red, we’re here to talk about his mother-in-law.
Her name was Thorbjörg Gilsdóttir. She was married to Jorund Atlason and had a daughter together named Thjodhild, who went on to marry Erik the Red. Thorbjörg was also known as “knarrarbringa,” which literally means Ship-Breast. Unfortunately, she appears sparsely in the Old Norse sagas, mainly in passing relation to Erik the Red, so we can only speculate as to how she earned this malapert moniker.
3. The Impotent
Nobody in history wants to be remembered as “the Impotent,” do they? But that was the unfortunate fate of Henry IV, King of Castile.
Back then, royal marriages were almost always political, and consummation was a key part of the arrangement since offspring served as tools to unite different royal families. Therefore, not being able to “rise to the occasion” could lead to serious consequences, even war. It certainly constituted grounds for annulling a marriage.
Henry’s first marriage was to Blanche of Navarre in 1440. The two were together for 13 years, but during all that time, they were incapable of producing an heir. Eventually, the marriage was annulled on grounds of impotence. Allegedly, the king tried to blame the whole thing on a spell, and even brought prostitutes to testify that his “downstairs plumbing” was in order, but the annulment still went through.
Even so, Henry married a second time to Joan of Portugal, and she gave birth to a daughter named Joanna in 1462. You would think this would put an end to the rude moniker, but it only made things worse. Rumors spread that Henry had his wife impregnated by one of his court favorites, Beltrán de la Cueva. Joanna received her own ignominious moniker, “la Beltraneja,” mocking her supposed illegitimacy, while her father was immortalized in history as Henry the Impotent.
2. The Unready
Now we know what you’re thinking. Compared to some of the other nicknames in this list, being called “the Unready” doesn’t sound so bad. However, this one earns extra points for infamy. While most of the other rulers mentioned here were simply historical footnotes, the king known as Ethelred the Unready played a pivotal role in English history.
He ruled as King of the English for 37 years, despite being remembered as an ineffectual ruler who proved unable to prevent the invading Danes from taking over the kingdom. His nickname wasn’t intended to mean “unready” in the modern sense. It was actually a pun on his name, Ethelred, which meant “noble counsel,” since “unræd” meant “no counsel” or “bad counsel.” So it was kinda like calling him “Brainy the brainless.”
Ethelred showed his lack of a “noble counsel” on two particular occasions. First, in 991, when he began paying a large tribute known as Danegeld in order to get the Scandinavian forces to leave his kingdom alone. Then, in 1002, when he enacted the St. Brice’s Day Massacre and ordered the mass killing of all Danes in his kingdom.
Although there wasn’t an immediate effect, ultimately, this resulted in the fall of Ethelred’s royal line, the House of Wessex, which was then followed by the end of Anglo-Saxon rule in England altogether once the Normans invaded a few decades later.
1. The Dung-Named
It is often said that “history is written by the victors” but, sometimes, it is simply written by those who live longer.
Constantine V was Emperor of the Byzantine Empire during the mid-8th century. Like his father, Leo III, he was a fanatical iconoclast, meaning that he opposed the veneration of religious images, as he considered them heretical. But to simply say that he “opposed” them would be a generous understatement. Throughout his reign, Constantine enacted raids on monasteries to have all their crosses, icons, and other religious knick-knacks destroyed. Those who were caught trying to hide or worship such images were tortured, mutilated, and even executed.
Unsurprisingly, Constantine didn’t have too many fans in the Orthodox Church. So they got back at him after his death by starting a rumor that, when he was a baby, during his baptism, Constantine had defecated in the baptismal font. As word spread, Constantine V became known as Kopronymos – the “dung-named.”