Fan Nickname / Overwatch

• Some of the Ultimates are almost never called by their proper name when spoken by players and commentators, instead given shorter names for convenience. Some popular examples:
  • Cassidy's Deadeye is called "High Noon."
  • Pharah's Barrage is "Justice." Fans of the Korean Overwatch League player Dong-Jun "Rascal" Kim also call it "Brush," due to Rascal's heavy Korean accent.
  • D.Va's Self-Destruct is "Bomb" or "D.Va Bomb."
  • Moira's Coalescence is "Kamehameha" or "coal."
  • Widowmaker's Infra-Sight is "Wall Hacks."
  • Similarly, Soldier 76's "Tactical Visor" is "Aimbot."
  • Winston's Primal Rage is "Mad Monkey" or "Angry Monkey."
  • Baptiste's Amplification Matrix is "Window."
  • Orisa's Supercharger is "Bongo"^note It technically more resembles an hourglass-shaped talking drum than bongos, but it's not as recognized or convenient to say.
  • Mercy's Valkyrie is "Moth."
  • Lúcio's Sound Barrier is "Beat" or "Beat Drop."
  • "Nanoblade" and "Nanovisor" refer to pairing Ana's Nano Boost ultimate with Genji or Soldier76's Dragonblade or Tactical Visor ultimates, respectively. "Beyblade" used to refer to pairing Ana's Nano Boost with Reaper's Death Blossom, but the tactic has fallen out of favor due to Nano Boost no longer providing a bonus to speed.
  • "Wombo Combo" is a team effort that happens when Zarya fires a Graviton Surge to pull all enemies together, and then someone else uses their Ultimate to kill them all (usually Pharah, but sometimes also D. Va, Junkrat, Tracer or Reaper). A more specific variant, "Gravstrike", refers to it being paired with Hanzo's Dragonstrike.
• "Pharmacy": a combination of Mercy and Pharah, as a flying Pharah is hard to shoot or attack, meaning a following Mercy makes her even more durable while the Mercy herself becomes almost as hard to kill. Mercy's damage buff also makes Pharah one of the best attackers in the game, especially when used in a Wombo Combo as stated above.
• "Monkey" is a common nickname for Winston for obvious (if technically erroneous) reasons. "Winton" also became popular due to the "winton jump winton zap winton ult winton nap" meme.
• Orisa is sometimes called "Horse" due to having four legs and the name being only one syllable.
• Tekhartha Mondatta is referred to as "Robot Gandhi/Martin Luther King Jr." by fans because he was a religious leader preaching tolerance before he was assassinated. Even DEATH BATTLE! gets in on this when exploring Tracer's backstory.
• "Sombrero", Spanish for hat, for Sombra. Coincidentally, in computer science, "hat" refers to the kind of ethics under which a hacker works – black (purely malicious), gray (violates laws or typical ethical standards, but lacking malicious intent) or white (purely ethical).
• Reaper is "EdgeLord" for his laughably over the top look.
• "Microwave" is a term used with Symmetra in two contexts. First is the "microwave gun" for her main projectile and second is the "microwave room" for the strategy of placing her turrets in a small room to see them fry the opponent to death.
• "Car wash" is a term used for the common tactic of Symmetra placing all of her Sentry Turrets in the same area to quickly disintegrate unfortunate intruders. The name comes from the achievement that was originally unlocked by killing an opponent with all six^note at the time, now three. Sentry Turrets and her Photon Projector's primary fire, and is now unlocked by having three Sentry Turrets simultaneously target the same character.
• "Baby D.Va" is a term frequently used when D.Va is out of her mecha, even by shoutcasters in official tournaments. Calling the gun she uses in this form the "Bunny Blaster" is similarly popular.
• "Lamp", "Lantern", "Drone", and "Frisbee" are nicknames for Baptiste's Immortality Field, the former two being inspired by behind-the-scenes prototype footage of the ability that Jeff Kaplan shared.
• Soldier: 76 is sometimes called "Call of Duty" due to his play style being very similar to conventional FPSes such as CoD. And then there are those who call him "Call of Daddy".
  • People also call him "Legs" due to his sprint ability being his most standout feature.
• In addition to their other nicknames, various characters have family-themed nicknames:
  • Soldier: 76 is "Dad: 76" due to the memetic Fanon that he's the Team Dad of Overwatch.
  • Mercy is "Mom" or "Team Mom."
  • Due to his status as the evil counterpart of Soldier: 76 Reaper is "Edgy Dad."
  • Reinhardt is "Grandpa" and Ana is "Grandma."
  • Moira is "Aunt" or "Aunt Moira."
• "Boostio" for a nano-boosted Lúcio, due to his infamous tendency to jump in the middle of Ana's Nano Boost at a critical moment. It reached such a level that Blizzard added it as an official line, featuring him yelling "BOOSTIOOO!!!" sometimes when nano-boosted.
• "Jago" for Genji's Blackwatch skin from the Uprising event, due to resembling Jago's rebooted design from the 2013 game. Some also call it "Desperado Genji" due to the skin having the signature colors of the armor worn by the four members of the Winds of Destruction.
• "Martyrdom" for Junkrat's "Total Mayhem" ability, courtesy of YouTuber TheShwantz27.
• "Rectangle" for Reinhardt's Barrier Field, largely thanks to this infographic .
• "One Punch Man", naturally, for Doomfist.
• "Capture the Draw" for Capture the Flag mode, due to the obnoxiously high frequency at which matches end in draws.
• "Pirate ship" is the name of a strategy on the map Junkertown which involves Reinhardt, Orisa, and Bastion setting up on the payload. Named so because the payload (which is full of treasure) is the ship, the barriers are the sails, and the Sentry/Tank Bastion is the cannon.
• "4-0verwatch" or "0-4watch" for The Overwatch League, referring to the tendency of matches to end in a 0-4 sweep.
• "Quarantine", referring to how most competitive players typically only play competitive mode and leave the much more laid back and chill atmosphere of Quickplay alone. Until off season, when the "Stop Having Fun" Guys flood Quickplay and proceed to start screaming at the quickplay regulars.
• "Lunar New Year 2019" getting called "Year of the Beard" because of the very beard-centric skins released for the event, even on Zenyatta!
• "Flankhardt" for when Reinhardt, who is supposed to shield the rest of his team, somehow manages to get behind the enemy team, whether through incompetence, luck, or an actual plan.
• "Hog and Ball Torture" (yes, really) for a Roadhog and Wrecking Ball pairing, known for being an effective rushdown tank duo that can effectively split up bunker-heavy team compositions.
• "Ajax" is used in competitive settings to describe whenever a Lúcio player is killed while casting his Sound Barrier before it goes off (named after pro Overwatch player Alex "Ajax" Jackson, who had notoriously bad luck with this, memorably getting killed and denied three ults on a single map during a season grand finals).
• "Guyla" for Mauga due to his very close resemblance to the pornographic character made by erotic artist Carmessi.
• Among Chinese players, direct transliterations of hero names are almost never used in a casual setting (unless they're extremely simple like D.Va or Ashe), with may opting to use their own easier, more in-jokey nicknames. Some of the most popular:
  • Baptiste is often just called "8d", a shortening of his proper transliteration, "巴蒂斯特"/"Ba Di Si Te"^note The number 8 is spoken in Chinese as "Ba", or "奥巴马"/"Obama" (somewhat of a meme among Chinese players for badass black characters in gaming, such as Lucian from League of Legends who gets the same nickname).
  • Brigitte gets called "锤妹"/"Hammer Sister" or "小锤"/"Little Hammer".
  • Doomfist gets called "铁拳"/"Iron Fist", "卤蛋"/"Spiced-Corn Egg" (referencing his baldness), "光头"/"The Bald" (a bit of a crossover meme with One-Punch Man), and "曹飞"/"Cao Fei" (meaning "Fuck away!", referencing a popular Chinese streamer PiWang who yells "fucking all away" after performing well on Doomfist).
  • Lúcio is usually just called "DJ", or "岛田DJ"/"DJ Shimada" (referencing his ability to climb walls like Hanzo and Genji).
  • Cassidy players are called "麦爹"/"Father Mai" as a sign of respect if they're playing especially well.
  • Mercy is just called "天使"/"Angel".
  • Moira gets called "莫姨"/"Aunt Mo".
  • Orisa is called "美羊羊"/"Pretty Goat", referencing a character from Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, or just "羊驼"/"Alpaca".
  • Pharah is often called "法鸡"/"Pha-Chicken", originally based on a joke against bad Pharah players that they can't fly well, much like chickens, but the name has since come to describe all Pharah players. As a result of this, Ana is also nicknamed "鸡妈"/"Mother of Chicken".
  • Reaper gets nicknamed "谐星"/"Comedian" due to his Memetic Loser status, attributed both to his lore and the fact he's often killed in funny compilation videos.
  • Reinhardt is called "大锤"/"Big Hammer".
  • Roadhog is called "猪"/"Pig".
  • Symmetra is sometimes called "阿三"/"ASan" or "三妹"/"Sister San", a historical term used to describe Indians (it's considered discriminatory in some modern contexts, but is generally seen as acceptable among Overwatch players).
  • Tracer gets called "猎空"/"Space Hunter" ("space" in this context associated with aeronautics and aviation, the term roughly equivalent to "Ace Pilot") and "闪光"/"Flash".
  • Widowmaker usually gets called "百合"/"Lily", or just "狙"/"Sniper".
  • Winston is, just like in English, "猩猩"/"Monkey".
  • Zarya is called "毛妹"/"Mao Mei"/"Sister Mao", which used to be a discriminatory Chinese term for Russian women, but is generally seen nowadays as silly, but upliftingly lofty.
  • Zenyatta is called "和尚"/"Monk".
  • B.O.B. is usually called the transliterated "鲍勃"/"Baobo", but another popular name is "舔狗"/"dog licking its host", carrying the same connotation as "bootlicker".
  • When paired together, Genji and Hanzo are referred to as "岛田二傻"/"the two Shimada idiots".
  • When referenced together (usually to the same capacity as "double-sniper" comps in English), Hanzo and Widowmaker are called "重建帝国"/"Couple to Rebuild the Empire".

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