Ironic Nickname - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Easygoing Veronica Mars, huh? You know how fat men are sometimes called Tiny?"

—Keith Mars, Veronica Mars

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, wuz 'e?

Nicknames and other forms of names hung upon a person by others can be a strange thing. They can be random names, or they can be shortened forms of full names, or they can suggest something about the person, like the Hulk. And then there's the case where the nickname deliberately does not describe the person.

The most famous one is probably the name "Tiny". Any guy called "Tiny" will ~~probably~~ invariably be eight feet tall with more muscles than a Mr Universe contest. The same is true for "Shorty" or "Pipsqueak" or any variation on a name or nickname implying "very small."

Very popular in Australia, where a bald man will be called "Curly" and a redhead "Bluey."

A subtrope of Nonindicative Name. For something similar applied to pets and animals, see Fluffy The Terrible and Deathbringer The Adorable.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Officer Hiromi Yamazaki of Patlabor is roughly 6'3" 250 odd pounds (about 2 meters and 100 kilos). In fact he's too big to pilot most of the mecha (can't fit in the cockpit). He's also a gentle soul (with a Gender Blender Name) who would have been a fisherman like his father, if he didn't get seasick. Half-pint Genki Girl officer Noa Izumi refers to him as Hiromi-chan using the diminutive usually reserved for cute girls and pets.
- Likewise, Bleach's Ken-chan/Kenny, is NOT the sorta man to be called Ken-chan (by anyone besides his adopted daughter).
When Gatchaman came to America as Battle Of The Planets, portly Ryu Nakanishi was renamed Tiny Harper.
Ironic name: One Piece's Donquixote Donflamingo believes in a new era without dreams.
- Similarly, Fleet Admiral Sengoku "The Buddha" is an amoral chessmaster tactical genius.
  - However, he does turn into a giant statue of Buddha.
Marie Mjolnir's nickname is the 'Crushing Weapon', which one would have thought fits with her surname and the understandable presumption that her Weapon form is a big hammer. Not only is said form that of a tonfa, but her speciality is speed ('Izuna' increases the speed of her meister through electricity...somehow). Though she can still hit really hard.

Comic Books

The Kindly Ones in The Sandman.
- Which is actually a historical nickname for the beings in question. It is a pretty common practice in many cultures to refer to scary supernatural beings by friendly-sounding names to avoid angering them. See The Fair Folk for another example.
Big Figure in Watchmen is actually a midget.
- "Nite Owl" got started when one of Hollis Mason's fellow police officers wanted a drinking buddy but Mason refused to change his early bedtime.
- Trust me, there is absolutely nothing funny about the "Comedian".
Happy Hogan is named thus because he was originally drawn with only one expression. It didn't stick.

Film

Sent up (ha) in the Starsky And Hutch movie, where they conclude that a guy is not the Tiny they're looking for on the grounds that he's too tall to be actually tiny, and not tall enough to be an ironic naming.

Folk Lore

Little John. Depending on the particular interpretation of the Robin Hood legend, he could be more than 185 cm (6 feet) tall and weigh over 90kg (200 pounds) - in an era when most men would have been under 160 cm (5 feet 3 inches) and weighed perhaps 55 kg (125 pounds) soaking wet. Lucky for Robin that Little John was one of the good guys...
- This concept is parodied in Blackadder, in which Edmund puts together a group of men, including a midget named Jack Large. Edmund offers him the nickname of Large Jack, only for Jack to not get the point at all. When Edmund offers to call him Little Jack instead, Jack immediately assumes his size is being made fun of and threatens to kill Edmund.

Literature

1984. The Ministry of Truth (the past is rewritten), The Ministry of Love (torture and brainwashing), The Ministry of Peace (in charge of the armed forces), and The Ministry of Plenty (rationing).
In the Discworld book Reaper Man, during his tenure as a mortal, Death befriends a group of old men in a small farming community, including a fellow known as Gabby Wheels, who (as can be expected, from this trope) never says anything.
- Similarly, Short Street in Ankh-Morpork is, in fact, the longest street in the city.
In C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments is not NICE at all.
In Robin Mc Kinley's novel Beauty, the titular character's real name is Honor, but as a child made the comment that "I'd rather be Beauty," and the nickname stuck. Ironic in that while her two elder sisters are extraordinarily beautiful, Beauty herself is extremely plain, awkward, and gangling.
In the Odd Thomas novels by Dean Koontz, Odd is friends with a writer named Little Ozzie. Little Ozzie is over 450 pounds, and only named "little" because his father, Big Ozzie (who is fifty pounds lighter than his son) is still alive.
A Song Of Ice And Fire has several of these, particularly in the Night's Watch: Small Paul, Giant, and Lord Snow (at least until he actually gets elected Lord Commander) come to mind. However, Sam the Slayer did half-accidentally slay an Other.
- Two other semi-examples: The Smalljon is so called because he is the son of the Greatjon despite "threatening to overtop his father", and Young Henly (well past fifty) is so named to distinguish him from Old Henly (well past seventy).
Jack London's book White Fang features a character called "Beauty" Smith. The author's descriptions of the character are, shall we say, less than favourable.
In The Dresden Files, Harry's typical response to anything ridiculously huge is to name it "Tiny." This has included both a gruff bigger than an elephant and an undead Tyrannosaurus.
In Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr books, the protagonist's Side Kick is called Bigman. He's 5'2", and sensitive about height jokes.
Subverted in the X Wing Series. The pilot "Runt" is pretty big and considerably stronger than a human, but that nickname followed him from his homeworld. For his species, he's practically a midget.
In The Last Dragonlord and Dragon and Phoenix, the youngest Dragonlords are traditionally called "Little One" regardless of size. One of them, a woman the size of a child, delights in calling the youngest one "Little One" to the point of rarely using his name to his face. He's about seven feet tall. On meeting the next two successive youngest Dragonlords, she is relieved to see that both of them are still taller than her.
All The Kings Men features the burly political operative Tiny Duffy, whose commitment to extending traditional Louisiana politics' cronyism to Willie Stark's administration once causes Stark to evict him from his office with a shotgun.
Ironic Nicknames are practically mandatory in the Brigands MC.
Biker names were usually ironic. Little George was the size of a house, Fats as thin as a rake and Teeth had nothing but squishy gums and a couple of brown molars at the back.
In Les Miserables, Fantine names her little girl Euphrasie in a moment of romantic inspiration, but soon she calls the babe "Cosette" all the time (which means, basically, 'pampered' or 'indulged' in French). Then she leaves her child with the Thenardiers, who verbally and physically abuse the child, starve her, and force her to work for her keep - all the while still calling her "Cosette," little Indulged. And Cosette becomes the name by which she is known her entire life, except in the most official moments.

Live Action TV

Dexter featured Little Chino, a huge man who actually survives Dexter's murder attempts. Twice. During one of them, he rips through enough tape to subdue a normal man, and the last time he's taken by Dexter you see none of him except for parts of his face, due to Dexter never making the same mistake twice.
An episode of Walker Texas Ranger featured the team investigating several hackers. One guy was named "Tiny" (or something), and the guy sent to talk to him ended up being beaten up by a huge behemoth of a guy. In contrast, a guy named "Big Hack" was... a midget.
In Veronica Mars Season Two, there is a janitor nicknamed Lucky. They nicknamed him that because he went to Iraq and was injured (which could mean he was lucky in not dying or unlucky in getting injured in the first place). Even more ironically, he ends up going off his rocker, starting a school shooting with a gun filled with blanks, and then gets shot dead by a security guard in an episode entitled "Happy Go Lucky."
Detective Constable "Dangerous" Davies, protagonist of The Last Detective series of mysteries (and TV show), is called that because he's a kind and mild-mannered detective who solves crimes mostly through dogged persistence. Also, one episode is about a guy known by the nickname Lofty, and there is some discussion to the effect that anyone with that nickname is invariably short.
In the TV mini-series Oktober the goons from the multinational pharmaceutical company pursuing the protagonist belong to its "Ethics Division".
In an episode of Cheers, a "Tiny" comes in and sits at the bar near Cliff, who, upon learning of his nickname, points out the concept behind it. "Tiny" tells him, "You're Smart!" Cliff takes it as a compliment, until "Tiny" points out that that's his Ironic Nickname for him.
Oz. The boss of the Latinos in Em City (Season 2-3) is Raoul Hernandez, nicknamed "El Cid" (The Merciful). As he's been convicted for fatally running a man through with a steel pole, and later orders a correctional officer blinded, this is clearly meant to be a very bad joke.
On an episode of Bones, Temperance learns that her paramour (who seems unwilling to have sex with her) is nicknamed "Peanut." Turns out he's embarrassed about his giant penis.
- Well phrased.
- Also, Temperance itself is something of an ironic name: one of the Seven Cardinal Virtues (very Christian, which she isn't), it has to do with being mindful of others and one's surroundings (she's not), practicing self-control (she's calm, to be sure, but she really doesn't know when to shut up), and being abstemious and moderate (while we've never seen her drunk, her sex life can hardly be seen as abstemious or moderate...not in a negative way, but definitely immoderate).

Real Life

Tom "Tiny" Lister, an actor who is also a very big, very muscular, very cross-eyed, very, very Scary Black Man.

Video Games

Tiny Tiger from the Crash Bandicoot games is massive.
The pilot of SSV Normandy was called "Joker" because he never smiled in flight school.
In Beyond Good And Evil, the man who fronts for the IRIS Network is a blind man named "Peepers." He even has an eye on the front of his shirt.
Secret of Evermore's Ancient Rome/Egypt mishmash world has Tiny. Guess what he looks like. (Hint: he has a mohawk.) Hell, they even lampshade it in his introduction (provided you see him before the Coliseum fight):
Tiny: Tiny likes irony.
It should probably be noted that it took this troper SIX YEARS to get the joke.
The instruction manuals and some other side materials for Army Men will often refer to Colonel Grimm as "'Happy' Jack", and then (sometimes within the same sentence) mention his depression over how long the current war has dragged on.
In Backyard Sports, Dante Robinson is called "Stretch" even though he can't stretch at all because he's really short.
Wing Commander's Chris "Maverick" Blair got the call sign as an ironic take on his by-the-book flying. Todd "Maniac" Marshal on the other hand, did not.
More of an Ironic Title, all of the named [[Halo Prophets]]
Mouser from Super Mario Bros 2 ? It's an evil mouse that throws nightmare bombs. Look up however what 'mouser' actually means... a cat trained to catch mice.

Webcomics

Ysengrin from Gunnerkrigg Court is referred to by one of his underlings as "the Very Nice Man." Ysengrin, the borderline-psychotic wolf-tree. Yeah...
In Sluggy Freelance a very fat guy and a very short guy host the "Broadman & Midget" radio show. Turns out the short guy's Broadman (real name Brouderman) and the fat guy's Midget (a.k.a. Mike Midgetski). They both seem completely unaware of the irony.

Western Animation

Avatar The Last Airbender: Pipsqueak and the Duke. Guess which one is the Gentle Giant and which one is the little kid. Go on, guess.
Despite being a carpenter by trade, Handy from Happy Tree Friends has stumps for arms. The name winds up being both descriptive and ironic.
In the Hanna Barbera series Top Cat, the dimmest member of TC's gang is named Brain. The Latinamerican Spanish dub managed to make it more hilarious by renaming him "Demostenes", after the greek philosopher.
The three Erics in the Wayside School series all have different nicknames... specifically, unflattering nicknames that invariably describe the other two.
Tiny, a female Tetramand (Fourarm's species name) in Ben 10.
The Rustler Alameda Slim from Disney's Home On The Range isn't exactly.

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