Have You Ever Wondered Why We Sometimes Use Nicknames?

it appears in years past in Europe many people did not move out of their village,

and at that time surnames were not universal, nicknames were the way to distinguish this Henry from the other Henry you knew, like Henry the farmer, Henry the mason, Henry the sheep and so on, those nicknames were even more important when kings and warlords inherited both realms and given names from their predecessors, so here are two from those times, the coat of arms above from Alfonso the Slobberer, why the slobberer? Alfonso IX, King of León and Galicia – who was a fairly successful ruler of the northern part of Iberia during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, managing to stay on the throne for 42 years, however, the North African scholar Ibn Khaldun noted that he was called Baboso or the Slobberer because he would foam at the mouth whenever he got upset, 

and if you have ever wondered why in the UK we have never had a King John II, this is the reason, King John of England was nicknamed John Lackland/Softsword, he is considered one of the least successful monarchs of  England (which is why there has not yet been a John II), when his brother Richard the Lionheart died in 1199, John inherited a powerful Angevin empire, within a few years, he was completely driven out of Normandy by the French, and would soon be facing upheaval in England, by the end of his reign, John had signed the Magna Carta (1215) which stripped him of many of his royal powers, his lack of military success earned him the nickname ‘softsword’ from English chroniclers, years before he became king, however, John’s own father Henry II gave him the nickname ‘Lackland’ when he realized this son would not be getting much of an inheritance compared to his older brothers, for a few more worst nicknames for medieval rulers have a look here.