Spoilers for RWBY follow. You have been warned.
Most of the Fan Nicknames for RWBY were supplied by the wiki as placeholder names, and ended up sticking.
General
- Prior to their name reveals, the fans once referred to characters by their colors: Red, White, etc. The fandom began using name colors from other languages as well.
- The droids in the Black trailer are AK-130 models. Due to the similarity in name to real-life AC-130 gunships - which are called "Spookies" - these droids are called such as well.
- The dinosaur who keeps popping up in Monty's pictures is called RWBYsaurus. Team RWBY has been referred to as Team DNSR due to its association with said reptile.
- The Schnee family's conjured Grimm are called Avatars by CRWBY, but fans call them Summons.
The Heroes
- Team RWBY
- Japanese fans have taken to calling Yang "Yang-nee" (Big Sis Yang) affectionately. They also refer to Cinder as BBA (which is Internet slang for the Japanese colloquial word "babaa", meaning "old lady", which can be a rude way to address someone depending on the relationship).
- Team JNPR
- Jaune Arc:
- Jaune has an in-universe nickname of "Vomit Boy", but his performance against the Nuckelavee Grimm at the end of Volume 4 resulted in fans upgrading the nickname to Vomit Man.
- Jaune is often affectionately referred to as "noodle" by a large portion of the fandom. After the fight with the Nuckelavee some have taken to calling him "pasta with beef."
- "Punished Jaune", for his Trauma Conga Line from Volume 3 onward, solidified by him becoming the aged, jaded, embittered Rusted Knight in Volume 9.
- Before their names were revealed, Pyrrha was Amber, Nora was Umbra, and Ren was Nero. Their team name would have been JAUN. When their names were revealed, ANVL became a short-lived placeholder: Arc, Nikos, Valkyrie and Lie. It was quickly replaced with JNPR (Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren) once Monty tweeted that it wasn't ANVL.
- Continuing with weapons, Pyrrha's (Milo) was called the Magnospear (derived from the word "magnetosphere") and Xiflelin (portmanteau of xiphos, rifle, and javelin), Jaune's Sword and Shielth (Crocea Mors), Ren's Jade Dragons (Stormflower), and Nora's was Amethyst Thunder (Magnhild). Due to apparent significance of Jaune's weapon, it was often also called Excalibur.
- Team Double-Date Night for JNPR due to how smoothly the two pairs ship. After the volume 3 finale, this seems to have changed to Team Third Wheel after Pyrrha's death.
- Pyrrha is sometimes called P-Money. She's also known as Captain Canada for her niceness, shield, and the maple leaves in the second intro. This increased after, like Canada, she got rid of the Penny.
- After the death of Pyrrha and Oscar repeatedly fighting alongside the team in V7, some have begun calling them Team ORNJ.
- Jaune Arc:
- Team RWBY and ORNJ are often collectively called Team RRAYNBOW, or Team RRAYNBBOW when counting Qrow.
- Ozpin's Faction
- The secret inner circle of "protectors of the world" that Ozpin is the apparent leader of has been termed the Ozluminati.
- Qrow has been dubbed Drunkle Qrow because he's permanently sloshed (and is Yang and Ruby's uncle).
- People started calling Ironwood Iron-Daddy in Volume 3, after the badass way he brought down a huge Grimm. This became increasingly popular over time once he'd been reintroduced with perma-stubble in Volume 4, and a full beard in Volume 7.
- Until Oscar's name was revealed, his nickname was Compost King after the Chibi "CK" reference on his farm composter. Ozcar quickly became popular after the reveal that Ozpin is riding around in his head; once it was confirmed that "Oz" is associated with his reincarnation, "Ozcar" became the nickname to refer to them both together, rather than one or the other. In Volume 5, his diminutive height compared to even Ruby, resulted in the nickname Smolboi.
- Ozma's blue shirt and glasses wearing host
◊ was named Bryan from Starbucks after the "RWBY Character Status Chart" called him such.
- Others
- Penny's Floating Array is nicknamed Puppeteer.
- As soon as the Volume 6 trailer revealed a mysterious elderly woman wearing some cybernetic goggles, fans took to calling her Katara.
The Villains
- Salem's Faction
- Roman Torchwick's weapon (Melodic Cudgel) was called Candy Cane.
- The witch that aids Roman in the first episode; fans liked calling her Wicked Witch or Crimson. Her name would later be canonically given as Cinder Fall.
- Emerald is called Cleo or Cleopatra because of her vaguely Egyptian-looking outfit. Fittingly, Mercury is called August or Marcus, ironically his father's name. Emerald's weapons, Thief's Respite, are called "Falcons" (portmanteau of falx + guns).
- Some fans decided to nickname Hazel as Jontron, Tyrian as Kimblee, and Doctor Watts as Pringles guy or Vinny. Watts had also been called Geoff due to his resemblance to RT's own Geoff Ramsey.
- After So This Is Basically... RWBY was released, fans of it began calling Salem Mommy Salami.
- The faction has no official name, but Salem's four enforcers, (Cinder, Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel) were known to the FNDM as Team WTCH (Witch).
- Cinder's team from the Beacon Saga has had many, many such names. The most popular seem to be Team CRME (Cinder, Roman, Mercury, Emerald) for her primary crew and Team CMEN (Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Neopolitan) for the team she entered in the Vytal Festival. The fact that Neo likely entered under a false name rarely enters this.
- The White Fang
- Banesaw for the chainsaw-wielding White Fang Lieutenant.
- Adam's frequently named Vergil, due to both of them being iaijutsu practitioners and being power hungry.
- The bandit that Yang punches in the first episode of Volume 5 is named Shay D. Mann, but on Reddit, he's also known as Fucko McToothless.
- Yuma, the assassin sent after the The Belladonna family is commonly referred to as Batman due to his batlike wings.
- Sister Trifa is often referred to as Spider-Girl due to her status as a spider faunus and her ability to fire webs from spinnerets in her palms.
- Others
- Junior's weapon has been dubbed the "Batzooka", saying he must have stolen it from Batman. In the same video, we have "DJ Deadb3ar."
- From the moment people heard the voice of the Curious Cat and knew what character he was based on, everyone immediately started calling him "Cat-Akechi". They ended up being 100% correct on this one, as the Cat turns out to be a traitor just like Akechi, and turns out to be the Big Bad of Volume 9. He's also sometimes called "Cat-Happy Chaos".
Grimm
- The Boarbatusk captured by Professor Port for a demonstration in The Badge and the Burden was being called Edgar after a cow that Port's voice actor Ryan Haywood captured during Roosterteeth's Minecraft videos.
- The Wyvern Grimm is called Kevin as a result of a random declaration by a Reddit user that caught on and went viral within the community.
- Nuckles for the Nuckelavee Grimm that shows up in Chapter 10.
- The Leviathan has been commonly given the name Lenny, in a similarly-mundane manner to Kevin. Others have dubbed it Bobo or Bubbles due to its face being reminiscent of a dolphin.
- Volume 7 introduced a new Grimm type called the Teryx. Thanks to a tweet by Miles, many fans have stated calling it Terry or Pterry
- Keeping in the Running Gag within the FNDM of giving the most monstrous Grimm the most mundane names, the gargantuan whale mount at the head of Salem's fleet at the end of Volume 7 has been dubbed Richard. Although the name was created before its creature name (Monstra) was revealed, the nickname stuck around afterwards because of the Moby-Dick allusions.
Other Characters
- Professor Port is sometimes called Professor Armstrong.
- Team SSSN
- Sun's weapons were nicknamed Gunchaku.
- Similarly to Jaune getting called a noodle, Neptune gets called a "pool noodle" by a good portion of the fanbase.
- Neptune's weapon, the Tri-Hard, is called the Trigundao.
- Team CFVY
- Coco was associated with Lucca and has also been called Mocha
- Yatsuhashi earned the more generic title of The Heavy. He's also known as The Mountain.
- Velvet's weapon, Anesidora, has been nicknamed Unlimited Blade Works, or Unlimited Velvet/Bunny Works.
- Dimension Samurai and Lady Grimm, and Vermillion for Raven's appearance in No Brakes.
- Team CRDL
- The two members of Team CRDL seen during the Initiation (Russel and Cardin) were referred to as Mohawk Guy and Armor Guy respectively.
- Cardin's mace weapon, the Executioner, is called Almace, or by others Douche Whisk.
- Arslan of team ABRN has quickly been deemed Team Mom for the many ditzy characters of Haven, as a result of her very parental eyerolling as she rescued her team-mates during their tournament match. Fan art frequently depicts her and Sage commiserating.
- Schnee Family
- Before his name was revealed, fans and RT alike could be heard referring to Jacques as Papa Schnee, and also as Colonel Sanders after his brief appearance at the end of Season 3.
- Shitley for Whitley Schnee due to his reputation within the fandom, which became significantly more popular after he taunts Weiss over her disinheritance in "Punished".
- Belladonna Family
- After Kali Belladonna was revealed in Volume 4, a new team was quickly "formed" with all the protagonists moms grouped together (The deceased Summer Rose (Ruby), the absent Raven Brawnen (Yang), the revealed Kali Belladonna (Blake), and the unseen Mom of Weiss Schnee): Team MILF.
- After defeating Yuma in volume 5, Kali Belladonna began being referred to as Catwoman (as in, Catwoman beat Batman)
- After Kali Belladonna was revealed in Volume 4, a new team was quickly "formed" with all the protagonists moms grouped together (The deceased Summer Rose (Ruby), the absent Raven Brawnen (Yang), the revealed Kali Belladonna (Blake), and the unseen Mom of Weiss Schnee): Team MILF.
- Hanzo for Lie Ren's father given his resemblance to the Overwatch character of the same name. The fact he was an archer contributed.
- Reddit named the pilot from Atlas who takes Weiss across to Mistral "Pilot Boi".
- The Ace-Ops
- Vine Zeki has been referred to by fans as Stretch Armstrong due to his Semblance granting him the ability to stretch his limbs via Aural projections, similar to the 70s toy.
- Marrow Amin has been referred to as either Good Boy or Goodest of Boys due to his nature as a dog Faunus, as well as his overall popularity. Japanese fans tend to call him either Puppy (Wanko) due to his Faunus nature or Big Bro Marrow (Marrow-niichan) in reference to him complaining about having to "babysit" the younger Hunters and Huntresses.
- Harriet is often nicknamed Rockhopper (Iwatobi) by Japanese fans due to her resemblance to a rockhopper penguin (it's her Unusual Eyebrows).
