Is it common for politicians to have insulting nicknames in your country?

25 comments

1. it can be debatable whether they are insulting but here’s some for big guys in polish politics:

   – Jarosław Kaczyński (leader of party that was rulling last 8 years, essentially guy who ran the show)

   – Kaczor (his surname comes from word for duck – kaczka, so it’s self explanatory),

   – another might be ones connected with his hight – kurdupel, karzeł (karzeł would be dwarf or midget; kurdupel doesn’t really have exact equivalent in english, but also relates to small person)

   – Donal Tusk (leader of biggest opposition party, now after recent elections will be in charge)

   – Donek – dimunitive of Donald, associated with Donald Duck, so we are essentially ruled by ducks from both sides :).

   Sometimes it’s said that Kaczor Donald (Donald Duck, combination of the two) is rulling our country cosue of the near-US-like duopol and both leaders being ducks

   – Andrzej Duda (president)

   – długopis (pen – since he signs off everything that lands on his desk),

   – budyń (pudding – it has to do with what childish, happy [face he has](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuYXZSW6rE)),

   – or Adrian (just another random name, comes from a sketch showcasing how irrelevant he is in politics, that even secretary in the party’s office doesn’t remember his name nor respects him and he’s to scared to stand up for himself)

   – Zbigniew Ziobro – minister of justice and head prosecutor. Really shady guy, has ton of power and is ultra catholic. He’s often refered to as Zero (as people saying that got 0 respect for him). Comes from old public hearing where another party’s leader called him: [“You are a zero mr MP”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kthy122fF8E). It caught up more recently though

   – Mateusz Morawiecki (was PM for last couple of years)

   – Mati – hood nickname derived from Mateusz, associated with your neighborhood idiot

   – Pinokio – polish version of Pinocchio, couse he lies a lot

   /edit: last addition, my fav one:

   – Adam Glapiński – head of polish equivalent of FED, he’s nicknamed “Jaszczomb” (or Jaszczomp), which is uneducated misspelled version of jastrząb (=hawk), a retarded hawk you may say. It’s connected with his boorish way of speaking and idiotic remarks, exact opposite of what you would expect to hear from someone responsible for polish currency and financial system. Came directly from [his speach](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TszysaddY8I) where he compared himself to a top hawk in hawk group that is our Monetary Policy Council

2. Yeah it happens, mostly just for ministers or party leaders.

   Like the current Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson did get called “Svältesson” – a nickname of her last name in tune of like “Starvation-sson” because her budgets are massacring the welfare state.

   Prime Minsister Ulf Kristersson has previously been called “Turbo” for hastily done reforms and decisions. The result or if it was good didnt matter

   Former prime minister Magdalena Andersson has been called “Arga Magda” or “Arga Andersson” because she’s a very harsh debater and doesn’t hold herself back from hitting back. (Angry Magda/Andersson)

3. Finland: very rare, and whenever a politician falls to the level of calling someone names, they’re essentially shooting themself in the foot when it comes to popularity, unless talking about fringe movements. For the most, it’s seen as uncivilized, immature and damaging, and working to the benefit of anyone who wishes for our nation to be broken into factions instead of being united. The rules of the parliament actually require members of parliament to act according to the high responsibility that comes with their status.

   Matters matter. People need to get along despite disagreeing, and this can be done without digging for kindergarten level emotions or rhethorics.

4. Very rare. Our political culture is based on cooperation, not confrontation. So such confrontational acts are seen as counterproductive and childish and not done much.

   We also are not very concerned with individuals and more with specific topics. Because we get to vote on actual policies on a regular basis, it doesnt matter so much which party has what share of the vote and they are always all “in charge” together anyway. You can always elect one party but then vote against them on certain issues later.

   So political discussions here are more likely about policies, rather than politicians. Many people, including me, know shockingly few politicians by name. And if you dont know them or anything about them, it would be hard to make such jokes anyway.

5. Yeah, but they’re not very creative. They’re either changed to look like Nazi names (because the government is supposedly oppressing us and taking away rights), or people just change a letter to change the name into a juvenile insult. Mark Rutte -) Mark Kutte (vagina wordplay), or Thierry Baudet -) Thierry Bidet. The latter also gets called Hitler sometimes, but that’s because he’s actually a fascist scumbag.

6. Very common, the current Spanish PM (Pedro Sánchez) was called so much Perro (Dog) Sánchez that his party used it ironically in the election campaign, they even sold merchandising with it.

   It is a specialty of the Spanish nationalist right, and they are quite good and creative with it, it’s hilarious sometimes.

7. In poltical editorials, news, discussion, forums, etc. then disparaging nicknames may be coined on the fly and are usually an insulting pun of sorts on their name or reference a policy/political view (or both).

   Margaret Thatcher is sometimes called Milk Snatcher because of a policy change which ended a subsidy for free milk for all children at primary school. I think it was something like that. I should look it up.

   Jeremy Hunt is often called Jeremy Cunt. [Here’s a video](https://youtube.com/watch?v=EmYwBHooA_M) of a dozen or so newsreaders accidentally saying the quiet part loud on air.

   David Cameron was referred to as Dodgy Dave a lot in the press and online from Dennis Skinner called him that in parliament and when he was asked to withdraw the insult he doubled down and got ejected for the day. He was referring to the Panama Papers tax scandal which he was implicated in.

   Basically we have tonnes of nicknames for them but they don’t really stick around for long and it’s usually very topical and obvious who you’re talking about. The Jeremy Cunt one kind of has followed him around forever though.

8. Absolutely.

   Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s PM, was nicknamed Perro Sánchez, but the guys at his party managed to reappropriate it.

   Alberto Núñez Feijóo is also known as Fakejoo, for the sheer ease with which he spews fake data and bullshit.

   Yolanda Díaz, second deputy PM, is nicknamed “la Fashionaria”, a portmanteau of fashion (as she dresses very well) and Pasionaria, the moniker of a former comunist leader.

   Pablo Iglesias, former second deputy PM, was nicknamed “el Coletas” because he sported a ponytail.

   Íñigo Errejón, a former higher-up in Podemos and leader of Más País, was called Milhouse for his youthful looks and always being second fiddle.

   Alberto Rodríguez, former MP, was called “el Rastas” for his dreadlocks.

   Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, an MP, is occasionally called Cuellotana, a portmanteau of her name and “cuello” because she has quite a noticeably long neck.

   There are plenty more nicknames, but these are the ones that immediately came to my mind.

9. Not to the American extend in terms of rudeness or maliciousness, but it happens now and then. A couple that comes to mind:

   – Troels Lund who once accepted a Rolex by a Middle Eastern prince of something on an official trip (which he obviously should have declined). Now sometimes referred to by people as Trolex (Troels + Rolex)
   – Our PM Mette Frederiksen is sometimes referred to as Mette Mor (Mette mum) for being a little too serious, strict and/or hands on. It’s not a general name as much as for when she makes changes to the country (or suggests them) that people find problematic..
   – Rudest I can think of is our former PM and current minister of foreign affairs. Lars Løkke, occasionally known as Fadøls Lars (Draught beer Lars). I presume I won’t need to explain how he ended up with that.

   Edit: keep in mind that our politicians would never themselves use these against anybody, it’s usually the tabloid press or people on the internet. Primarily the latter.

10. No, not really.

    Here in Italy, any nicknames in the Prima Repubblica (1946-1992) were flattering, by that I mean “not meant as an insult“. But they were really not nicknames proper, or born as that, rather journalistic appellatives that mutated into them, occasionally. **[1]** Nowadays there still have been nicknames, sometimes more akin to the old kind (Berlusconi is called “Il Cavaliere” due to him being nominated to the Order of the Merit for Labour in the 80s) or holding less honour as “Il Capitano” for Matteo Salvini, which is meant oftentimes in a not ironic fashion, but not used by journals or political commentators per se, and has been corrupted into “Il Capitone” (large eel).

    But (**important differences**) these are all

    * are **nouns**, not *adjectives*, so the comical and desecrating effect of adding an adjective to an actual name is gone
    * Originate from a neutral, factual source or alternatively the political backgrounds of the figure itself, not from the opposition

    **[1]** One example that comes to mind is the definition of both Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro as “cavalli di razza della DC”, which is a way to trace a metaphor for prominent, important, primary for a party (The Christian Democracy party, itc) political representatives, as the purebreed horse is for a scuderia, a stable in their races (elections, in this case, presumably)

11. Yeah, we’ve got plenty of those, although they aren’t always insulting or used by the opponents.

    * Putin has plenty, and most of them are pretty bad. I guess the least obscene ones are “Pynya” (comes from his surname), “Mol'” (lit. “moth”, ’cause he’s hard to get rid of ig?) and “Ded” (lit. “old man”, ’cause he’s old).
    * Dmitry Medvedev – Dimon (a very informal variation of Dmitry). It became popular after Navalny made a video about him. Sometimes also called “spyashchij Dimon” (lit. “sleeping Dimon”) when he’s caught sleeping during events.
    * Vladimir Zhirinovksy (late leader of the LDPR party) – Zhirik, comes from his surname. I think the LDPR even made ice-cream with the same name.
    * Mikhail Gorbachev – Mechenyj (lit. “the marked one”) because of the birthmark on his head.
    * Boris Yeltsin – Mukhozhuk (lit. “fly-beetle”) – that’s a funny one. During his resignation speech he said “ya ustal, ya ukhozhu” (“I’m tired, I’m leaving”), which some people misheard as “ya ustal, ya mukhozhuk” (I’m tired, I’m a fly-beetle).
    * Valentina Matviyenko (Chairwoman of the Federation Council) – Val’ka-stakan (lit. “Val’ka-[drinking] glass”, Val’ka is an informal form of Valentina) – also a funny one. Allegedly, it’s because she often drank with her superiors to get to the top.
    * Sergei Lavrov – (Govoryashchaya) loshad’ (lit. “(talking) horse”) – no idea why. Maybe it’s because of the face (doesn’t look like a horse at all imo), or that he fell on his knees once, or it’s just a different way to say “talking head”.
    * Anatoly Chubais (politician from the Yeltsin era, often blamed for the 1998 default) – Ryzhij (lit. “the redhead”) because, well, he’s ginger (more like fair-colored imo).
    * Patriarch Kirill – “Gunya”/”Gundyaj” (from his surname Gundyaev).
    * BONUS: Navalny is never called by name publicly by Putin or any other Kremlin politician. He’s always “the [insert adjective] citizen” or the “person in question”. Akin to Voldemort, but among politicians.

12. In Spain it is extremely common to the point that most people following politics would know the politicians instantly by their nickname and believe me the American ones are very tame compared with the Spanish ones.

13. The most prominent ones I can come up with from the top of my head are
    – Mutti (Merkel, kind of self-explanatory), endearing term for mothers, but not as belittling as Mami
    – Flinten-Uschi (Ursula von der Leyen, who everyone agreed was abysmal as minister of Defense). Uschi is a nickname for Ursuala, but also sort of derogatory (not a slur or bad, just indicates not much education, a bit above Kevin I‘d say). It’s also sort of a stock name, like Jane Doe (but as I said rather someone unknowing / out of their depth). So basically it also implies a woman who got her job cause she‘s a woman. Flinten is because of the Defense minister thing. But also sort of derogatory / belittling. A Flinte is a type of weapon but usually used in a hunting context nowadays. Technically it’s a shotgun, but sort of also indicates someone has to use a Flinte with a wider margin, because otherwise they‘d hit their target.

14. In denmark it’s an old-people thing.

    Some older people call our prime minister “Mum-Mette” meaning she is like a helicopter parent.
    Some make jokes about our former prime ministers alcohol addiction. An other former prime minister was called “Gucchi-Helle” because of her expensive bags.
    And one of my former colleagues referred to our minister of culture as “Turbo-minister” because he once got stopped in his car while on drugs and speeding.

    But I think most people find that kind of stuff stupid and childish.

15. Well, I lived under 16 years of Helmut “Die Birne/The Pear” Kohl and 16 years of Angela Merkel who transformed from being Kohl’s “Mädchen/Girl” to being everyone’s “Mutti/mom”.

    None of these nicknames were necessarily insulting in the way that “crooked Hillary” is and this was not for lack of people who thought them to be lying or corrupt.

16. In Romania we call our president “The Ficus” because he’s as useless as a house plant, except the plant actually produces oxygen. I’ve also seen the mayor of Bucharest’s sector 1, Clotilde Armand called Clatita Armani (pancake armani) but that’s just a play on words and not really that mean as i see it.

17. There are a few.
    Gabrielius Landsbergis (Foreign Affairs minister – anūkas(lit. grandson), because he is the grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis (first president of independent Lithuania)
    Artūras Zuokas (long time mayor of Vilnius) – abonentas (lit. a customer of a telecom company) a name that he gained during a corruption proceedings.
    Visvaldas Matijošaitis (mayor of Kaunas) – krabas (crab) because he owns a company Vici which sells frozen fish and “crab” meat. Has a factory in russia and political ties to russia.

18. Spanish here, it’s super common. Our current president Pedro Sánchez is commonly refered to as Perro (dog) Sánchez

    Mayor of Madrid José Almeida is often called Carapolla by many people (Dickface)

    We are very straightforward with insults

19. People do use them. If a politician, however, talks about any other politician without addressing them as “señor/a”, they will automatically lose any credibility and possibility to grasp a vote. Manners maketh man.

20. Politicians will never use insulting nicknames to talk about other politicians.

    Now, some people (esp. borderline fanatics) may like to use derogatory surnames, but it is usually seen as childish / extremist bullshit.

21. One of my favourites is Schotter-Mizzi for a former minister of finances, Maria Fekter.

    She’s the daughter of a quarry owner and also, obviously, in finance. Schotter means both gravel and money (but with a negative undercurrent, and she’s with a very corrupt party). Mizzi is a nickname for Maria. It lead to her having a meltdown on national TV, stating that “no one calls her Mizzi”.

22. Norway: we have Jonas Gahr Støre. Aka “tåkefyrsten”. The misty count.

    Not only does he look like a vampire, it is notoriously hard to get a coherent answer from him that doesn’t sound like a parody of a lawyer trying to dodge an answer.

23. Not really. It is seen as childish and simplistic. If a politician were to call another politician by a nickname then it would reflect more badly on him than who he is calling.

    These people are supposed to be mature adults, professionals. Using names in the way that Donald Trump does is schoolyard behaviour.

    Within the media though this is different. They make up names on a regular basis but they are usually short term and reflect some particular aspect of behaviour that is currently in the news. In general they don’t stick because they change every time the politician does something different.

24. Yes but they are often funny rather than insulting almost anyone have either nicknames or memes related with them but they are almost never used by politicians themselves.

    Erdoğan has the nicknames: Watermelon-seller (not so common), thief, tall-man, leader of the universe/galaxy/current age/the world as nickames. But as I said except for the thief and long-man non of them are used by the politicians.

25. Someone else has done a good one for prime ministers, lets see what I can remember for recent(ish) non prime ministers:

    “Honourable member for the 18th century” – Jacob Rees Mogg (Aristocratic family + dresses & sounds like he comes from the first half of the 20th century with very nice suits and old fashioned. hence might as well be the 18th century)

    ” Leaky Sue” – Suella Braverman (not really used often, but given by another party leader. A macabre play on her opinions of sinking migrant boats from France).

    “Two jags” – John Prescott (no prizes for guessing the link to his name, and official cars).

    “Welsh Windbag” – Neil Kinnock (He was Welsh, and talked passionately in his speeches and whatnot).

    “Worzel Gummidge” – Michael Foot (previous Labour leader, named after the TV character which was a scarecrow. This was because he dressed desheveled. Noted occasion was on memorial day wearing a duffel coat which resembled a “donkey jacket” – a jacket at the time was associated with manual workers and unfitting for a sombre occasion).

    General nicknames aren’t as big as they used to be, there used to be a much loved (revived since, although never have gravitated to it as such. A bit more tame nowadays) political satire called Spitting image. Less nicknames but politicans would get massacred and associated to their character. John Major was heckled in Hansard (official parliament record) about his peas since he was always portrayed as eating just plates of peas, painted grey, with his wife Norma (as he was very much seen as bland). Some of his ministers like Ken baker was portrayed as a slug, Ken Clarke as a raging drunk. On the other side you had Roy Hatterslea who would be portrayed as raining spit on other people when he talked (caused by his lisp, as somwone with the same problem I can empathise!). Nowadays its more tame like Keir Starmer is seen as a boring grey character himself and Rishi Sunak is this short little weasley character (probably due to his diminutive size).