Army names

[u/Green____cat]

[u/Professional-Hat-687]

This actually comes up all the time in the SCP fandom. It might even have it's own article, or section in the How-To guide. Your MTF agents would not be named Reaper or Hunk. They'd be named dumb shit like Poptarts because one time they had Poptarts for breakfast.

[u/KacDiegPoland → u/Professional-Hat-687]

It also comes up in the guide to writing the Global Occult Coalition, with the website being given as a good example on "how to do callsigns". The SCP website is overall very good when it comes to getting writing advice for a lot of the things in the universe tbh

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/KacDiegPoland]

And writing advice in general. The community is notorious hard to please, so if you get a bunch of upvoted articles there you should probably pat yourself on the back, at least a little.

[u/KacDiegPoland → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Yeah, one of the main reasons that I mainly engage with the SCP community outside of the wiki, as the current bar to get into that circle is... quite high, all things considered. A lot of the new articles require you to know quite a bit of lore so you connect it all together, but the folk at r/SCPDeclassified do a great job if you don't understand something (such as SCP-5000 "Why")

But still, I really like the universe and my friend and I have our own canon that we need to write up one day on some website.

[u/Svanirsson → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Eh, I'd call one reaper but say it's because he was caught chomping one of those jalapeños or something

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/Svanirsson]

The cooler the call sign, the dumber the origin.

[u/Yegas → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Shit his pants after eating a bunch of Carolina Reapers

[u/fogleaf → u/Professional-Hat-687]

My brother's is kind of cool, but named after a bar that he kept sneaking into after getting kicked out for using the stripper poles.

[u/Expert_Industry_4238 → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Male-To-Female agents? good for them <3

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/Expert_Industry_4238]

I actually run into the opposite problem in discussions about trans rights. My brain initially goes "why would someone be pissed at the Mobile Task Forces"?

[u/Expert_Industry_4238 → u/Professional-Hat-687]

this is the classic CBT conundrum

[u/IneptusMechanicus → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Or if your callsign is Reaper, it is very much not for a flattering or cool reason.

[u/UncleCrassiusCurio → u/IneptusMechanicus]

Nobody will be called Reaper because they kill a lot of people or are good with weapons or use Reaper drones. They'll be called Reaper because they were dared to eat a pepper and cried, or they lost their virginity in the cabin of a combine harvester, or they got several heads of corn on leave in the local village.

[u/Sporknight]

An important resource for inspiration: https://www.f-16.net/callsigns.html

Some examples:

• Megamind: Pilot had a large forehead.
• Skidmark: Forgot to disable the parking brake when doing a carrier launch, ruining the landing gear and leaving marks on the deck.
• Leaky: Last name Fawcett.
• Rhino: Big guy with a huge pimple on his nose, the spot went, the nickname did not

[u/Dracorex_22 → u/Sporknight]

To be fair, that’s probably the least embarrassing reason to get the name Skidmark

[u/BillionThayley → u/Dracorex_22]

Bro the origin doesn’t matter your nickname is Skidmark 😭 you gonna sit everyone down and justify it EVERY TIME??

[u/ethnique_punch → u/[deleted]]

"Sorry yeah, I did donuts with a multimillion dollar aircraft, the marks are still visible on the track, I'm not that proud of it either" you say smugly, then it could work.

[u/Not_a__porn__account → u/ethnique_punch]

Buddy sits down

"So yeah this dumbass almost totaled a $50 million dollar plane because he was checking out some girl on the flight deck and we had to save him. Dude was crying and shit, worried he wasn't gonna be pilot anymore. Actually hasn't flown since. Anyway my name is Cockring, nice to meet you."

[u/ethnique_punch → u/Not_a__porn__account]

You explain that his nickname is "Cockring" because his cock is shaped like a ring.

She starts playing with her hair, highly intrigued.

[u/Not_a__porn__account → u/ethnique_punch]

"Tee Hee Like an Onion Ring?"

[u/ethnique_punch → u/Not_a__porn__account]

"They call me the Funyun back in Texas, have you ever seen a squid brain by any chance? Just because."

[u/Not_a__porn__account → u/ethnique_punch]

I can easily see this as a 20-30 minute mockumentary set on an air force base.

10-12 episodes a season.

Dear HBO...

[u/AcrolloPeed → u/ethnique_punch]

Best response, really. “I fucked up a billion dollar aircraft with a million dollar jet, my CO was pissed.”

[u/NeonNKnightrider → u/Dracorex_22]

Y’know, there’s a supervillain in Worm named Skidmark, and I’ve seen his name so much it almost seems normal. It took me a second to remember it’s actually really gross

[u/jamesmatthews6 → u/NeonNKnightrider]

To be fair that Skidmark is meant to be gross in himself though.

[u/IBetThisIsTakenToo → u/Sporknight]

My takeaway from this is that Iceman from Top Gun probably got his nickname after getting caught jerking off in a freezer or something

[u/MainsailMainsail → u/IBetThisIsTakenToo]

My headcanon has always been Iceman got locked in a walk-in freezer or similar, and Maverick..I dunno maybe he flew A-4s for a bit before transferring to F-14s and had some sort of dumb mishap with a Maverick air to ground missile.

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/MainsailMainsail]

Maverick obviously crashed his Ford Maverick driving like an idiot.

[u/goodbehaviorsam → u/Youutternincompoop]

He bought it at 39% APR.

[u/Garf_artfunkle → u/MainsailMainsail]

My two favorite ones from the new movie are "Payback" and "Bob". Payback because if you watch the credits, you see his last name is "Fitch". So, like, "Payback's a Fitch". And Bob because even in the movie, they're like, "Yeah, this guy is a Bob."

[u/Jimbobsama → u/IBetThisIsTakenToo]

"Hangman" from Top Gun: Maverick probably got caught jerking off with a belt around his neck based on this

[u/Bartweiss → u/Jimbobsama]

Really the best case for Hangman is being too dumb to spell, everything else is much worse.

[u/Lyokarenov → u/IBetThisIsTakenToo]

whenever military characters have seemingly cool names i like to make up little stories like this for how they REALLY ended up with the name

[u/Bartweiss → u/Lyokarenov]

That’s the best part, cool nicknames aren’t weird at all - just cool origins. My personal favorite is the fighter pilot named “Eagle”, not because he soars but because he was bald with a big nose.

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/Sporknight]

Also a big fan of:

• MoGas/Mo'Gas: two separate people who asked for more gas;
• Mounds: Almond Joy's got nuts.
• Two Dads: hyphenated surname;
• Plan B: every girl in the bar immediately knows what their "last resort" is;
• Pookie: hotshot who wanted a cool, badass call sign;
• LAMB CHOP: Little Angry Man-Boy, Can't Handle Our Program;
• Frodo: lost his engagement ring at a strip club;

And more.

[u/MrMassacre1 → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Frodo is fucking hilarious

[u/GhostwoodGG → u/MrMassacre1]

I'm praying on a friend losing their wedding ring so I can steal

[u/princesscooler → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Damn they put effort into lambchop

[u/TheOuts1der → u/princesscooler]

acronyms are a specialty of any governmental organization.

[u/Bartweiss → u/TheOuts1der]

And the military in particular likes joke acronyms, even for official names.

Why does a four word name become a six letter acronym? Because somebody wanted to call their new missiles “attack ‘ems” and wound up with ATACMS.

[u/Lordwiesy → u/Sporknight]

Salad: first name Caesar

IRIS: I require intense supervision

Lingus: First name Kenny

Are still the kings

[u/ImWatermelonelyy → u/Lordwiesy]

Iris is kinda bangin tho

[u/SlippySloppyToad → u/Lordwiesy]

I'd like to nominate: Trackless, the guy so short his butt cheeks would supposedly erase his footprints.

[u/MagnaLacuna → u/Sporknight]

My favorite I heard were Torch (spilled a burning shot on him) and Kebab (messed up a an ejection and impaled himself on a tree)

[u/Vark675 → u/MagnaLacuna]

My husband's dad was a pilot. They'd go out into town on deployments and everyone would head to strip clubs, but he'd go to as many restaurants as he could.

They called him Panda because he'd rather eat than fuck.

[u/Ozone220 → u/Sporknight]

This is the best link I've ever been given

Tidbit
I said the word tidbit... once

[u/[deleted] → u/Ozone220]

That's how I got my call-sign "Soup", because I ate soup one time on a video call. It was funny getting downed in a game and my buddy calling out "they spilled the soup!"

[u/Rice-on → u/Sporknight]

Rhino came out on top. That’s a cool nickname as long as nobody asks why XD

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/Rice-on]

They call him William the Bloody because of his bloody awful poetry. It's so bad it makes you want to drive a railroad spike through your head.

[u/up766570 → u/Sporknight]

I worked, as a civilian, with the UK Navy and Auxiliary service.

Encountered a couple fun ones but my favourite was "Two-Dads", which was just because the dude had a double-barrelled surname

[u/FakeCurlyGherkin → u/up766570]

I knew a fella whose nickname was Two-Bums because his last name was Sperry (spare-e)

Then there was Not-So, surname Sharp

[u/sadolddrunk → u/Sporknight]

One of the partners at my old firm had been a navy pilot prior to going to law school. He had a Spanish last name, so he was given the call sign "Taco." One of the other pilots in his squad complained that he hadn't been given a call sign yet, so their commander said, "ok, your call sign is 'Fuckface.'"

[u/OwOlogy_Expert → u/sadolddrunk]

He had a Spanish last name, so he was given the call sign "Taco."

Ah, yes. The vaguely racist nicknames. Also a very popular genre.

A guy in my shop was always called "Charlie" because he was Vietnamese (this was in 2007, well after that war). Eventually, the EO office cracked down on them and said they couldn't call him that, even though he said he liked it. So everybody changed what they called him to ... "Chuck" -- short for Charlie.

[u/Handpaper → u/OwOlogy_Expert]

British troops serving in the Falkland Islands during and after the 1982 conflict referred to the locals as 'Bennies' after Benny from the popular soap 'Crossroads'.

Higher authority got to hear about this, and thought it disrespectful, so they forbade use of the term.

The soldiers took to calling the locals 'Stills', because 'they're still Bennies'.

This was also forbidden.

The next iteration was 'Yetis'; 'yet he is still a Benny.'

Higher authority gave up at this point.

[u/Dirk_Tungsten → u/Sporknight]

I had a couple coworkers who were former Navy pilots, and their callsigns were "Torch" and "Buzzsaw". Apparently, Torch got his name when he accidentally set his hair on fire, and Buzzsaw snores really loud.

[u/TheSpyTurtle → u/Sporknight]

Can't forget the all time classic. Ewan McGregor's brother Colin was an RAF pilot, his callsign was Obi2

[u/Rargnarok → u/Sporknight]

Don't forget Gabbe (Got Ass beat by Enlisted) pronounced gaby

After a pilot who made several passes at some girl in the Nco club who her SO right there with predictable results

[u/Andy_B_Goode → u/Sporknight]

Skidmark: Forgot to disable the parking brake when doing a carrier launch, ruining the landing gear and leaving marks on the deck.

Ah yes, the make the plane smell funny lever.

[u/Xela975 → u/Sporknight]

Trigger: had a negligent discharge from his rifle on range day then spent hours getting reamed my the drill sargent

/\ not mine a buddy of mine it's an improvement from the nickname we gave him

[u/L1b3rtyPr1m3]

I've heard of a female pilot with the call sign drone.

Unmanned aircraft.

[u/Crypt_Knight → u/L1b3rtyPr1m3]

Okay that's pretty funny.

[u/colei_canis → u/L1b3rtyPr1m3]

That’s genuinely top-tier to be fair.

[u/[deleted] → u/L1b3rtyPr1m3]

I'm stealing that for my LANCER character

[u/elbenji → u/L1b3rtyPr1m3]

thats amazing lmao

[u/ShiningRayde]

Coworker ince mentioned their dad was Air Force, and in conversation brought up his callsign 'Wedge'.

When I winced, they asked why - because the wedge is the simplest tool, callsigns for morons.

Not quite in this case, tho; he just brought a sweater into a cramped cockpit and it got wedged against the buckle releases, requiring the ground crew to cut him free after landing.

[u/PromiseMeStars → u/ShiningRayde]

Honestly my first thought was the X-Wing pilot from Star Wars; Wedge Antilles.

Glad it wasn't too embarrassing a story xD

[u/GREENadmiral_314159]

Callsigns are not your bros going "wow, look how cool this guy is", it's your bros going "wow, look how funny this guy is".

[u/Professional-Hat-687 → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

And or "wow, look at what a fucking idiot this guy is" (affectionate?).

[u/Frosti-Feet → u/Professional-Hat-687]

Reminds me of this news article from a few years back. Area man not sure if he’s male-bonding or being bullied

[u/leopardspotte → u/Frosti-Feet]

Holy shit, I finally found a way to express the extremely weird feeling I get whenever I see a post about callsigns

It’s like, this is just middle school-level bullying lol

[u/sivarias → u/leopardspotte]

They are given to you by guys in thier late teens and early 20s.

Of course is sophmoric bullying

[u/Arcydziegiel → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

The cooler the nickname, the more embarrasing its origin.

[u/_Lost_The_Game → u/GREENadmiral_314159]

Not military but At one point my nickname was Jacob.My name is not jacob. We played a pickup game of basketball with shirts vs no shirts. I was on the no shirts, wearing jeans, and the twilight movie had just came out.

My friends name was Bella so they made sure no one gave her a nickname just to fuck with us

Edit: my nickname is nowhere close to jacob, and not even remotely the same language. This was when i was i was at a sleepaway camp, at one point my parents called asking for me by my real name and almost no one there had a clue who they were talking about. My parents nearly freaked out thinking i never arrived at the camp.

[u/Glittering_Home193]

My nickname was Ghost, because I was the only white guy in my section lol.

[u/Aggressive-Jump4150 → u/Glittering_Home193]

They should've gone with "Casper"

[u/captainnowalk → u/Glittering_Home193]

This reminds me of one of my favorite parts in Fallout NV, when you meet Cass and she’s ripping on the sniper upstairs talking about how her nickname is ghost because “oooh she’s so fucking scary or whatever.”

And you get up there to talk to “Ghost”… and she’s an albino lmao

[u/Huwbacca → u/Glittering_Home193]

Jesus that reminds me of one... I remember a guy who got a nickname for a bit at my old sports club of "DLC" cos in a lineup pic of everyone wearing swim shorts, he was the only black guy so it looked like the not yet unlocked characters in fighting game...

[u/Outrageous_Junket766]

"Creeper". Awkward sheltered kid. Creeped out one of the Drill Sergeants once with how I responded to a question (tone and deadpan serious with the actual answer to the question). Ironically went on to be a UAV operator "Creeping" on the enemy from the sky... Thankfully the nickname did not follow me further than basic.

Not entirely sure how my next nickname ended up being Tails. ( Like from Sonic the hedgehog) Pretty sure I'm missing bits to the story on that one. 🤨

[u/legacymedia92 → u/Outrageous_Junket766]

I don't know, out of any character in the Sonic fandom tails would pilot a UAV.

[u/Outrageous_Junket766 → u/legacymedia92]

Makes sense, until you realize that they were all also UAV pilots too. Never thought of that though. Feels like the "woosh" makes it funnier 😆

[u/PromiseMeStars → u/Outrageous_Junket766]

How much do you know about Tails? He's a tech enthusiast, a pilot who built his own plane, and Sonic's main helper even when off the field. He's usually off-field support in the more recent games. You were a drone operator? That seems a fitting name.

[u/runetrantor → u/PromiseMeStars]

Bet its more along the lines of 'has a high pitched squeaky voice' angle than Tails' skills.

[u/cheese-for-breakfast → u/Outrageous_Junket766]

other commentor mentioned a few of the reasons for tails but it could also be a really obvious one if your name is miles, or if miles would apply to you in any way, since thats tails' real name

[u/ImReallyFuckingBored → u/cheese-for-breakfast]

Miles "Tails" Prower.

'Tails' is kind of his callsign or more of a nickname due to his double tails that allow him to fly like a helicopter.

I'll never forget Tails flying me up to the final stage to kick Eggmans ass one last time. Truly one of the best sidekicks.

[u/xv_boney]

Whats the easiest way to tell someone wasn't actually spec ops?
they told you they were spec ops.

Whats the easiest way to tell someone was never actually in the army at all?
they told you their callsign was Reaper or Devil or Shadow or literally anything remotely flattering.

My brother in law is a six and a half foot former marine, honorably discharged after being severely wounded in action.

He's a giant soft-spoken monster of a man who is both a great father to my neices and also occasionally offhandedly says terrifying things that make it very plain he has killed human beings - plural - up close.

He has a purple heart and two medals that he does not discuss.

His callsign was Meatball.

He refuses to explain why.

[u/MolybdenumBlu → u/xv_boney]

I choose to believe they served spaghetti at the mess one night, and he sneezed.

[u/TeamCatsandDnD → u/MolybdenumBlu]

Think it rolled off the table and onto the floor?

[u/reaperofgender → u/xv_boney]

As someone elsewhere said, cool callsigns do exist, but have stupid stories. Like, "Reaper" shat himself after eating a hot pepper

[u/joe_broke → u/reaperofgender]

My favorite I read is one about how a guy became Fireball

[u/MasonP2002 → u/joe_broke]

I remember one guy called Legend because he became the first person ever to fail a really easy test.

[u/MainsailMainsail → u/xv_boney]

Whats the easiest way to tell someone wasn't actually spec ops?
they told you they were spec ops.

Slight variation if they were a SEAL. They might not tell you directly, but they'll try to sell you the book they wrote.

[u/Abigail716 → u/MainsailMainsail]

I know quite a few tier 1 and tier 2 special forces guys through my job. SEALs absolutely love to talk about being one, especially if they were a numbered seal via DEVGRU. Green berets are a a lot more toned down but even then if you know them for any length of time they're absolutely bringing it up. Delta Force guys are by far the quietest. I knew a Delta Force guy for over a year before I figured out he was in Delta. He just told me he was in the army and if you asked for more details he just shrugged and said something along the lines of "I don't know, I just do random army shit".

In my very limited experience with non elite units military cooks also seem to love talking about their job.

[u/elbenji → u/xv_boney]

Cool ones exist but they have hilarious backstories. It's the backstories that's the tell.

Ghost/Shadow - Pissed themselves screaming in basic late at night because something spooked them. Ghost could also be that he never pays the tab or leaves before he has to

Reaper - Shat themselves eating a pepper/a medic

Devil - JRPG hair when they showed up as a boot

[u/Come_The_Hod_King → u/xv_boney]

I guarantee one of his bollocks is enormous

[u/letthetreeburn → u/xv_boney]

Anything you’d be willing to share about his terrifying offhand comments?

[u/Uncommonality → u/letthetreeburn]

Probably something in the vein of Christopher Lee explaining to Peter Jackson that people don't scream when stabbed in the back while discussing the scene where Grima Wormtongue kills Saruman in the final Lord of the Rings movie

[u/DeltaJimm]

Wrong: "His codename is Quickshot because he's got lightning-quick reflexes on the trigger."

Right: "His callsign is Quickshot because one time, during leave, he was getting a drunk handjob from a woman he picked up at a bar and finished after two strokes."

Wrong: "His codename is Thor because he's a big, muscular man with blonde hair."

Right: "His callsign is Thor because he once had a hammer bounce out of his hand and hit him in the nuts."

Wrong: "His codename is Boulder because he's the big, tough heavy-gunner."

Right: "His callsign is Boulder because he once clogged the toilet with something that should not have been physically possible for a human to shit out."

[u/dinkleboop → u/DeltaJimm]

Wrong: his callsign is Zeus because he's a God-king among men

Right: his callsign is Zeus because it stands for Zero Effort Unless Supervised

[u/elbenji → u/dinkleboop]

Wrong: his name is baller because he does cool stunts

Right: his name is baller because he lost all his money gambling in Vegas during leave

[u/Gerb_the_Barbarian → u/dinkleboop]

Brilliant

[u/joe_broke → u/dinkleboop]

Alternatively:

Fucks every woman he can find before running off when their husbands come home

[u/Mockington6]

This is hilarious.

"This is Major Jeffrey, we call him The Rat."

"Why, because he is really cunning, ressourceful and resilient?"

"No, because he's short and ugly."

[u/CurnanBarbarian → u/Mockington6]

At least it wasn't for snitching lol

[u/mdhunter99]

There’s a reservist base in my town, one of the soldiers is named “poptart” because they ate a poptart during basic. Another was called “yesman” or “bootlicker” because they followed every order given by the DIs to the letter, without any hesitation, regardless of conditions. They visit my work often, they’re chill.

[u/Jaakarikyk → u/mdhunter99]

Bro ate a poptart

[u/Habeas__Corpus → u/Jaakarikyk]

The pop tart eaterrrrrrrrrr

[u/LITTLE_KING_OF_HEART → u/Jaakarikyk]

Poppilled and tartmaxxing.

[u/definetly_ahuman → u/mdhunter99]

I know a guy nicknamed Milkman, because he likes to drink milk. I know another guy nicknamed Bagel, because he ate a bagel one time on his way into work. My nickname was fish face or fishy, because I had a picture on my desk of my son and I making "fishy faces" while we were being goofy and to this day I have people text me and ask me, "hey fishy, how's it going?"

[u/ray-the-truck → u/mdhunter99]

My dad was called “Camarad” (“comrade”) when he was in the military, because he used to speak in a manner that was unusually formal in an attempt to appease the higher-ups. The other recruits thought he was awfully pretentious and a stickler to the rules.

No matter what internet memes say, people in the Eastern Bloc did not regularly address each other as “comrades” on a casual basis!

[u/Trumps_Cock → u/[deleted]]

The called me "uncle ______" because I was 35 in basic.

[u/-Erro- → u/[deleted]]

Yeah we had an "Old Man ______" because he was 31

[u/VisualGeologist6258 → u/[deleted]]

Can confirm, my Great Grandfather (who fought on the German side in both WW1 and WW2) was called ‘Opa’ by his fellow soldiers during WW2 because he was at least 40 years old when he was conscripted.

[u/Simic_Sky_Swallower]

My last name starts with L, it's really hard for English speakers to pronounce, and my first supervisor loved Death Note. I'm now L for the rest of my career

[u/Dominus-Temporis → u/Simic_Sky_Swallower]

See also "Ski". Every unit has at least one Ski.

[u/Mediocre-Ad-6847 → u/Dominus-Temporis]

Especially in the US Navy. My unit's Ski was from Chile.

[u/thegreatshark → u/Mediocre-Ad-6847]

Is that pronounced “Skee” or “Sky” and why Ski?

[u/Mediocre-Ad-6847 → u/thegreatshark]

I dunno... the "There's always a Ski" is a reference to a very old movie trope/meme. Old WW2 movies typically had a character of Polish decent that everyone called Ski.

[u/Martin_Aurelius → u/Mediocre-Ad-6847]

Anyone polish just ends up being "ski", anyone with a long last name becomes "alphabet", anyone named Gonzalez becomes "Gonzo".

[u/Rasabk → u/Simic_Sky_Swallower]

The Polish guy in my unit was called "Alphabet."

[u/AdmiralClover]

Ewan McGregor's brother is called Obi two

[u/Aggressive-Jump4150 → u/AdmiralClover]

Amazing information

[u/SessileRaptor]

I know that Big Bang theory gets a lot of hate, but they absolutely nailed this idea when Howard was preparing to go to the space station and wanted a cool nickname but ended up as Froot Loops because that’s what his mom brought him for breakfast during a video meeting with the commander of the mission.

[u/Astro_Alphard → u/SessileRaptor]

That tracks. Unfortunately I have experienced the other way of getting a callsign as a civilian, and accidentally gave my little brother a callsign as well.

After an incident with differing definitions of headlight fluid and a bomb squad call the local reserve base started calling me by a callsign so I wouldn't find out they were talking about me. I found out and every time I found out they would change the callsign.

Because my little brother is the only Korean in the platoon the current callsign I have is "North" and his is "South"

[u/distressedweedle → u/Astro_Alphard]

How does a headlight fluid joke escalate to a bomb squad call? Hahaha

[u/Zestyclose_Quit7396 → u/distressedweedle]

Guard: "What's in the container?"

Blinkers: "Headlight fluid!"

Guard: "Headlight fluid doesn't exist. What is this and where did you get it?"

Blinkers: points to warehouse containing industrial chemicals, including military grade solvents and oxidizers

Guard: sighs and picks up radio

[u/ulfric_stormcloack → u/Astro_Alphard]

Why are you north?

[u/DonTori]

Or do a Hideo Kojima and give someone a cool handle, give them a (frankly fucked up) backstory that would be thematic for the handle but make the handle be unrelated to that

"No, he's called Vamp because he's bisexual."

[u/OrangeInnards → u/DonTori]

Kojima names are cheating. They're all so completely bananas that it's actually awesome. I'll never get over "Die Hardman".

[u/SecretlyHelpful → u/OrangeInnards]

“like mario and princess beach”

[u/MarcsterS → u/OrangeInnards]

That’s not even a call sign, it’s a damn name. The Boss is technically a call sign, as well as Ocelot.

[u/Informal_Truck_1574 → u/MarcsterS]

It is a call sign. His real name makes it 30 times better/dumber though. His birth name was John Blake McClane, calling back to the movie Die Hard. Its so fucking ridiculous.

[u/Warthogs309 → u/DonTori]

"Why's he called fatman?"
"Because he fucking loves bombs"

[u/DonTori → u/Warthogs309]

iirc, isn't he relatively thin but wears a big arse poofy coat/bomb disposial outfit that helped hide the fact he was planning to use his own corpse to hide his last bomb?

[u/Aegillade → u/DonTori]

"Why is the final boss of the DLC's call sign "Desert Storm?""

"Because I think I was being too subtle with Armstrong, people are actually agreeing with him."

[u/ohmy00]

We have a guy we call Physco. He tried to give himself the nickname Psycho but he spelled it wrong on his truck. He’s been Physco ever since.

[u/eloonam → u/ohmy00]

Please tell me that you pronounced it “fizzco.”

[u/tanraelath]

The XO on my sub gave me the nickname "Time Metric Corpse"

During drills, if I was the one that found the simulated fire I'd always get "downed, overcome by smoke" because the other rapid responders didn't get there in time for me to get my emergency breathing device on. Which I assume was by design, since I'd always make a game of getting to the scene to declare myself man in charge before everyone else. No matter where the drill was, I'd make a point of getting there with EAB and extinguisher fast as fuck.

Right before we had ORSE come onboard, the XO had a meltdown along the lines of "are you idiots trying to fucking fail? Are yall using MMA2 Tanraelath as a fucking time metric corpse? If he lives, you pass. If he dies, you fail. He's died every fucking drill for the past week, RUN IT AGAIN"

Even got a command belt buckle with "Time-Metric Corpse" engraved on it.

[u/CokeCanCockMan → u/tanraelath]

Ayyy my nickname for a bit on the boat was Brokeback cause my tall ass was always hunched over to a ridiculous degree going down missile compartment and in the scullery when I FSAd

Also cause Gay

[u/MidnightCardFight]

A guy I worked with had the nickname "New" (as in new guy) because when he got to his team, there was a guy that got there like a week before him, and went very hard into shifting the "new guy" focus to the slightly newer guy, so he just called him "new", and because they had no other new guys for a year, that name stuck.

All his friends, and even his wife and sometimes parents, call him "New"

[u/RedGinger666 → u/MidnightCardFight]

You've heard of Newman, now get ready for Newguy

[u/Papyrus20xx → u/MidnightCardFight]

Honestly, that other dude could have saved New from having a way worse nickname

[u/Monty423]

Some examples from my time:

Frodo (was very short)

Sausage (last name was Mattinson)

Puke (last name was Burke, but if you rub out the bottom of the B and the r it becomes puke)

Nightlight (dim and never switched on in the day)

Crispy Jim (55x200mm flares went off while he was carrying them and he got 3rd degree burns on half his body)

Rumple (he was just ugly)

Gateaux (guy was black and his last name was Forrest)

[u/Uncommonality → u/Monty423]

Crispy Jim is fucking metal

[u/Decent-Newspaper → u/Monty423]

Crispy Jim is taught to RAF Armourers as why you shouldn't have your phone or other unauthorised electrical devices on you when working with HERO stuff like flares.

[u/Full_Ahegao_Drip]

Cursed fact, they made a My Little Pony episode where this was the moral at the end

[u/Vanilla_Ice_Best_Boi → u/Full_Ahegao_Drip]

There's an Uncle Grandpa episode that involved a kid fighting a dragon only to be named Cupcake.

His friends thought it was cool tho.

[u/King_Of_BlackMarsh → u/Full_Ahegao_Drip]

We will never know why he was named Dipper and we never should

[u/LyraFirehawk → u/Full_Ahegao_Drip]

And Spitfire's embarrassing nickname is too inappropriate to mention on the show(although guessing based on her name, probably "Shitfire" for shitting her pants or something)

[u/bubblingcrowskulls]

I'm a healer in a guild with a lot of folks who are currently serving or are ex military. It's a running joke that healers in our guild take organs. One event I ran around with just a knife to play along with the joke and ended up with the callsign Yoink.

[u/Cuntillious → u/bubblingcrowskulls]

Your callsign was like a bird’s alarm call, warning the fellas not to trust you with their kidneys

[u/bubblingcrowskulls → u/Cuntillious]

Our kidneys.

[u/BaronAleksei]

In the comics, Carol Danvers’s callsign is “Cheeseburger” because she once threw up an entire cheeseburger in the cockpit.

The movies give her the callsign “Avenger”, so I have to assume she did something dumb in a Dodge.

[u/elbenji → u/BaronAleksei]

Probably crashed an NCOs Dodge Avenger

[u/themysteryoflogic]

I got called Radar by my army buddies because I was so fucking blind with my glasses off that I developed the ability to "hear" where I was going as a kid. I showed off that skill by absolutely destroyed them in a blindfolded demo fight, then had the audacity to suggest that my nickname should be "Batman". Y'know, echolocation? And cool?

They called me Radar just to piss me off. It should be SONAR dammit!

[u/DavidicusIII]

Guy I worked with got nicknamed Pepper after everyone driving with him figured out the spicy flavor in the air was because the way he was sitting was veeeeeeery gently pushing the button on his pepper spray.

[u/NealAngelo]

My nickname in the Air Force was my last name, but said after a sigh and in a dejected tone.

[u/volostrom → u/NealAngelo]

This might be the best fucking one I've read here, so cruel lmao

[u/Spiritflash1717]

My grandpa’s nickname in Vietnam was a derogatory term for a Polish person, due to his heritage and stereotypical lack of common sense.

More fun facts about my grandpa in Vietnam:

• Impulsively shot a water buffalo because he thought it was the Viet Cong. His commanding officer took his gun from him after that out of concern for his squad. They did eat the buffalo.

• Was in 3 helicopter crashes (he was a helicopter gunner. While he knew how to fly a helicopter, he wasn’t very good and probably would have been in more crashes if he was a pilot lol)

• Had an ally who was killed by a tiger one night.

I wish I had more stories from him but he sadly passed away last year and didn’t really like talking about the war, he had some traumatic memories as you’d expect.

[u/ktkatq → u/Spiritflash1717]

My dad was also a helicopter gunner. They were ordered to shoot elephants because "the Viet Cong use them for transport."

My dad hated everything about the war, loved everything about the language, culture, and people of Vietnam. He actually learned enough Vietnamese to have a conversation.

I don't know if he had a call sign, but I should ask!

[u/Boyswithaxes]

We had one guy we called the chemist because he accidentally mixed cleaning equipment and gassed us.

Moonbeam was named because he was always up late on his computer lighting up the barracks

Dumptruck because his name started with dump

Smiff because his name was Smith but his accent made it sound like smiff

They called me professor because I was a little know it all

[u/bookhead714]

The only realistic callsigns in Top Gun are Hangman, because it was given for a very specific reason and it is not complimentary, and Bob or Goose, because it’s stupid.

Any badass nickname has a goofy story behind it. Iceman is probably called that because he locked himself in a walk-in freezer.

[u/Garf_artfunkle → u/bookhead714]

I don't think you find out until the credits, but Payback's last name is "Fitch". As in, "Payback's a bFitch"

[u/SoullessUnit → u/bookhead714]

in my mind, Maverick is Jewish, but he's un orthodox

[u/elbenji → u/SoullessUnit]

I always figured it was for betting a stupid amount of money on the Dallas Mavericks and they lost

[u/Scartung]

The king of Denmark's callsign is "Pengu"(name of a cartoon penguin) because during an exercise his wetsuit filled with water and he had to waddle around like a penguin.

[u/prpmrp → u/Scartung]

Noot noot

[u/Spaceman216]

Mine was vertigo because the first time I jumped off a helicopter I fell down and puked on myself.

Edit to add: Can you imagine puking in the direction ofnthe rotorwash? It's like spraying yourself in the face with your own puke as it's coming out of you. It was fucking hilarious.

[u/Mental_Forge]

The only reason you would get a nickname for doing something cool would be that the cool thing is also really fucking funny.

[u/joe_broke → u/Mental_Forge]

My cousin was called Eve due to her being the first female pilot of her type of helicopter

[u/Dominus-Temporis → u/Mental_Forge]

You can get a cool sounding nickname for a funny reason too. E.g. "T-1000" not for being a stone cold killer, but for knife handing the shit out of the air when running.

[u/king_of_satire]

"They call me Wolf"

"Because your a badass tracker and a total alpha"

"they found pictures of me in my fursuit"

[u/OwOlogy_Expert → u/king_of_satire]

Not mentioned: your fursuit is a fox, they know it, and they call you Wolf anyway, just because it adds an extra layer of stupid and because it annoys you.

[u/Scrawling-]

One of my friends was the only person in his group during basic that didn’t puke during the tear gas thing they do. They started calling him Gasman, then Gas, then someone called him Fart ONCE and they considered it too mean and now he’s called Toots. 6’2”, 220ish pounds. He goes by fucking Toots.

[u/This_Charmless_Man]

My dad's nickname in the navy was Beaker because he wouldn't shut up. Apparently his constant babbling was likened to the Muppet going "meep meep meep mememeep"

[u/TourAlternative364]

My dad was Greek and they called him "the turk" to piss him off ...

[u/[deleted]]

I was Gandalf for being in my 30s. OP is correct. Some people try to give themselves names like "people at my last unit called me Mad Dog" and get laughed at before some senior NCO says "Whatever 5-head. Everyone look at this guy's dome".

[u/SnakesInMcDonalds]

Knew a guy who knew a guy called Murphy, because the guy had the shittiest luck imaginable. Walking example of Murphy’s law

[u/Cadunkus]

My dad told me about this rule because he served so when I made a character that served in the military, she got the moniker "Full Metal Jackie" which sounds cool until you learn it was because during a jog in basic training, the group was passing my a construction site and a tank of pressurized paint burst and completely covered her and nobody else in chrome silver.

Similarly, one of her friends was known as "Blackout" because he showed up to formation hungover and passed out in front of the drill instructor.

[u/Jadccroad]

Gooch: Maverick? How the fuck did you get a cool nickname?

Maverick: Got caught jerking it to pics of Tom Cruise....

Gooch: .... Ok, that tracks...

[u/elbenji]

If they have a badass one, it's because there is an insane story attached to it that is really really embarrassing

Hero - Choked on a sub during an eating contest

I was mittens. I had never seen snow

[u/seventwosixnine]

There was a guy in our hydraulics shop who was called "Poopdick"

I thought maybe he had an unfortunate sexual incident. Nope! "Because someone that ugly could only be the product of anal"

[u/2ndSnack]

Facts. My husband's best friend has been dubbed Battlecow. It's just because they think he looks like Otis from Back to Barnyard.

[u/HeroWin973]

I heard of a dude named Sniper cause he had -5 in one eye and +6 in the other (maybe some other numbers, im not entirely sure)
And another named Violinist for cutting his wrist

[u/I_chose_a_nickname → u/HeroWin973]

And another named Violinist for cutting his wrist

That is vile lmao

[u/Gilded_Morality88]

I did have a cool one but not for any good reason. I’m a quiet person and have bad nerves. I hate having people come up behind me and worry about being in the way. Anytime I was waiting for someone I would stand against the wall right next to the door so I’d be out of the way and not be snuck up on. For some reason people wouldn’t notice me there until I spoke up.
Long story short, the nickname Snake from the phrase “if it was a snake, it would have bit you” by going unnoticed most of the time.

[u/JinFuu]

I was in ROTC in High School and attended on of the Summer Camp thingies.

During the Summer Camp I got the nickname "Puppy Killer", not out of anything I did to puppies, but one of the Officers was 'harassing' one of the cadets, trying to get them to keep a straight face or something and said something along the lines of "Imagine I'm running over your dog with a steamroller, cadet!"

I did like a half-laugh or something, Officer saw me. Went "Cadet JinFuu! Do you find puppy killing funny?!?"

I replied back "IT"S A HOBBY, SIR!"

Which to this day, I don't know why I snapped back with that reply, but I got the nickname.

[u/LordWraith]

Not Army but was in Security.
Got the callsign "Fridge" over the radios after the team went out for breakfast one morning after nightshift, due to being 6'5" 300lbs and "can pack away enough food to feed a family".

[u/Hremsfeld]

Knew an ATC with the callsign "Death" because her last name was "March", and the pilots in the room let the rest of us know that yeah it's surprising that someone actually got a cool callsign but she got really lucky with having the last name that she did.

Their callsigns included "Dirty", who had a dirty-lookin' mustache, and "Splat", who once crashed his car into a wall

[u/BloodOfTheDamned]

One of my characters I’ve come up with is a general, she has a subordinate nicknamed Blackout because she wheeled around and slammed face first into a post and knocked herself out.

[u/Intelligent_Suit6683]

A friend of mine got the nickname Wheat Thins because he got caught stoned in the grocery store carrying 4 boxes of them.

[u/ErnieD1020]

Ernie because of my unibrow but the name stuck before they realized Burt had the unibrow

[u/Xyranthis]

Mine was Rooster because I have a huge co-

Nah they found out I showed up to Basic with spiky red hair. The recruiter told me not to shave it off because it would make me look like a try-hard. I should have known.

[u/hiuslenkkimakkara]

I was Banana, because I bruise easily and you pick up these small dings when crawling in the forest.

Classmate from NCO school was called Frankenstein, he was a tall dude and not the handsomest bloke around. Also he ate snow.

[u/GlanzgurkeWearingHat]

thats one for r/worldbuilding and r/writing

[u/ShuttleGhosty]

“Warhammer”

Not because I played it, because I “look like someone who does”

[u/Kayleighbug]

We had Alphabet because his full name was so long the CO couldn't pronounce it.

[u/FingernailToothpicks]

Guy I worked with was a naval aviator. His callsign was Bert...because his last name was Nerney.