Fan Nickname / raocow

Yeah, his official name is Aku Aku. I get that. I've always been about calling things by their official names. That's like the byline of my channel: "Always calls things by their real names dot com!"

— raocow in Part 8 of his Crash Bandicoot (1996) LP.

raocow, being the eccentric LPer he is, has come up with plenty of wacky names for enemies in his videos. Here's a set of the more memorable ones:

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• From Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Bros. X, or ROM hacks thereof:
  • Charlie for the Chargin' Chucks is probably raocow's most well-known and longest-lasting nickname.
  • (Stupid) Horse for Yoshi. Likewise, calls ponies dinosaurs.
  • Marvin for the Banzai Bills in Rob-Omb's Quest.
  • "Fishing Fish Guy" for Fishin' Boo.
  • "Disco" for a rainbow Koopa shell.
  • "Maverick Thwomp" for any Thwomp that moves sideways instead of up and down. This has become sufficiently pervasive that other romhackers and players have adopted the same terminology.
    • "Drunk Thwomp" for Thwomps that move diagonally.
  • "Skeletons" for the Dry Bones.
  • "Farts" for the Yellow Horse's ability.
  • The Pink Yoshi is often dubbed "Eldritch."
  • "Statue Man" for the Golden Bowser Statue.
  • In his LP of SMW Freedomn he calls the Scuttle Bugs "Gerbils".
  • "Neckbeard" for Fuzzies. He got tired of this one after a while, though, and started calling them Fuzzies again.
    • Also "Richard" after he once mispronounced this nickname as "Dickbeard".
  • The platforms that fall after a set amount of time are "Math".
  • "Duck" for Mechakoopas.
  • "Boo Laser", "Boo Carousel", "Boo Cloud", and "Boo Ceiling" for various ghost house enemies.
  • "Beardo" for Birdo.
  • "Missile Mike" or "Mack Bill" for the homing Bullet Bills.
  • The brown Munchers from Super Mario Bros. 3 are "Potatoes", while the four-legged Koopa Troopas from the same game are "Chickens".
  • "Dino-Rhino-Lino-Bino" (in any order, plus whatever else rhymes with "Dino" he feels like adding) for Dino-Rhinos.
  • "Durgan Coins" for the Dragon Coins.
    • Recently, Dragon Coins have become "Dagadons".
    • Even more recently they have become "novelty coins" or "giant novelty coins", particularly in games that require or track their collection.
  • "Necro Boom-Boom" for the glitchy Boom-Booms in Mario Adventure ^note If there are more than one Boom-Boom on the screen, and one is defeated while the other is flying, the flying Boom-Boom turns into a bizarre glitchy mish-mash of Dry Bones sprites.
  • The creepy version of Kirby from Super Talking Time Bros. 2 has become "Zbambabar".
  • "Wizard" for Magikoopas.
  • Tanooki Suits are "Teddy Bears".
  • "Catnip" for the ASMBXT Yoshi resprite.
    • "Zebra Space" for the hidden levels of ASMBXT.
    • ASMBXT eeries are "Paralars", after the talkhauser of the same name.
    • All three of the above became canon to ASMT.
  • "The Elf" for Link from The Legend of Zelda (or occasionally "Lunk"), when he appears in Super Mario Bros. X hacks.
  • In Super Mario Bros. X episodes, he has been calling the Tweeter enemies Twitter.
  • "Friction Ball" for the non-hatching green Spiny eggs from Super Mario Bros. 3.
  • He once called a Thwimp "Tinbit," and referenced how he quickly adapts to nicknames. He did use it later in the LP, but he hasn't been consistent about it since then.
• From Yoshi's Island:
  • "Flying Condom Man" for Gustys
  • "Catoboo" or "Catobo" for Lava Drops, the fireballs that have :3 faces.
  • "Flesh Lord" for Tulips.
  • "Lord Puddington" for Muddy Buddy.
  • "Eggplant" for the flowers that shoot eggs.
  • "Lava Frog" for Hot Lips.
  • "Karate Man" for Zeus Guy.
  • "tap-tap the tap-tap" and various other extended versions for Tap-Tap, as well as for any other video game enemy with vaguely similar appearance or behavior.
• From Super Mario Galaxy:
  • "Lums" for Star Bits is by far his most commonly used fan nickname in this series. He also frequently calls them "candy".
  • "Ribbons" for Prankster Comets due to their icons on the map.
  • "Patrick" for the large purple Luma that needs to be fed 20 Star Bits to move the Prankster Comets.
  • "Overripe Goombas" for Micro-Goombas (the smaller tan Goombas that die instantly to a spin instead of being stunned).
• From Touhou Project:
  • Bob, the piranha plant fuzzies from Super Marisa World.
  • Rumia became "Bootleg Yoshi".
  • "Gremlins" for the Shanghai dolls.
  • Marisa has been dubbed "Marrow" in MariAri 2.
  • He has also started to call Flandre, Flanders.
  • Unsurprisingly, "Purple" for Yukari.
• Bartholomew the bird in An Untitled Story
• "Darwin" for the hang-gliders in Runman Race Around The World, "Stalker" for the Hugabugs.
• In his short video of Spelunky during Random Week, he called the snakes "Optimus Prime".
• "Spaceman Joe" for Galaxy Man from Mega Man 9.
• The protagonist for Distorted Travesty is apparently "Allen"^note real name Jerry, originating from Allen Walker, whose sprite Jerry uses.
• "Butter" for the yellow grabbable blocks in Fantasy Explorer Nitroid.
• "Armageddon" (or, as he pronounces it, "Armegadon") for the pilotable Virs mechs in Copy Kitty
  • "Satan" for Maszlyg (the industry-styled boss), "Wizard" for the gear-shooting Yinimros, and "Kettle" for the Hoagalls.
  • He calls recently-reencountered Burst Kryjil "The Emperor", probably in reference to how he put arcana names in his Copy Kitty video titles. Even though in the video where he first fought Burst Kryjil, the Hanged Man was in the title rather than the Emperor.
• Bubble Man, the Mastodon of Pain.
• Doctor Light in Mega Man X is "Santa Huygens".
• "Banjo-Kazooie" for B.K. from Apocalypse of Foroze.
• Ridley is often referred to as Slowbeef.
• "God's Umbilical Cord" for World 6 of Hina's Fluffy Dream.
  • He calls the gravity shift-ignoring^note the game's central platforming mechanic is shifting the gravity, which also effects several enemies fire wizards "American Wizards."
    • The ice wizards, whose shots obey the current gravity, are similarly called "Canadian Wizards."
• You know those giant hopping enemies that are present in every single 8-bit Mega Man (Classic) game? Well raocow has a name for those guys ... "Hoppy Hopper Man".
• In Super Pika Land Ultra, dragon coins have been replaced with Pokéballs. Naturally, he calls them Dragon Balls.
  • He calls the rising fire pillars Lickitung.
• Intra-level shortcuts that are accessed by entering an invisible door or pipe are called "Luna shortcuts", after the Luna Tower level from ASMBXT that used them extensively.
• In Valdis Story: Abyssal City, he calls the red-hooded scythe-armed enemies Red Riding Hoods. Of course, their green counterparts are Green Riding Hoods.
• Soon after obtaining the ability to summon a ghost familiar in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, raocow quickly took to referring to him as Scooby-Doo, and considered him to be more charismatic than the demon familiar.
  • The Holy Water weapon is "juicy juice", which carried over into his LP of Distorted Travesty 3 when Claire received it as an ability of her own.
• The Oobs in Meat Boy are Soil Erosion Monsters.
  • Bandage Girl is sometimes 'Meat Girl' or 'Glitch Girl'.
• The mummies in StarTropics are Mummlies.
  • He pronounces Zoda-Y's name as Zodayy.
• Wings of Vi:
  • Due to a series of coincidences, Vi is now "A the Safety Bee".
  • Due to the unpronouncability of his name, Jeh'Oul gets a lot of these. raocow seems to have settled on Happy Joel, while the talkhausers also call him JJ or Jello.
• At the start of his Patreon videos, he addresses his supporters as Patapons and Saucepans.
• After witnessing the hell that is the Escape Goat post-postgame, the viewers have started calling it I Wanna Be The Goat.
  • The goat's mouse companion in the sequel is "Roo".
• Lyft from Fly'N is "Salad"
• The developer of Mega Man on the DOS (and subsequent Mega Man games of dubious quality) is named Kevin.
• From Wario Land 2 and 3, the giant owl on which Wario can hitch a lift is affectionately, loudly, and repeatedly referred to as 'OWL CONTROL'.
  • Also in 3, Mad Scienstein (the Mad Scientist-looking fellow who can turn Wario invisible) gets called Professor Science.
• Madeline, the protagonist of Celeste, gets her name abbreviated to "Maddy". Her Enemy Without Badeline inherits the other half of the name and becomes "Deline".
• Hollow Knight:
  • The protagonist's Soul Power is called "milk" due to its white color.
  • The Leaping Husks are called "Larries".
• The generic resistance soldiers in Mega Man Zero are all named Douglas, as are the Guardian troops in Mega Man ZX.
• Weights in La-Mulana are "Bread". Daises, especially those that need to be repressed after leaving the area, are "Weight Tax" or "Bread Tax".
• The High Jump in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is the Sad Jump or the Depression Jump, due to Mario's oddly sad-sounding "Let's go" whenever he's moved to the front to perform the move.
• Tosanaizer V and similar enemies that jump out of pits in Mega Man (Classic) are "Up-and-Downs". This extends to other games, like Henry Hatsworth, with similar types of foes.
• On the topic of Henry Hatsworth, Skull Enemies are Hammer Bros, and a Pokey-like enemies composed of several smaller ones are called, of course, Pokeys.
• Rings are "Coins" in the Sonic the Hedgehog series.
• Aku-Aku from Crash Bandicoot is sometimes "Rutabaga", which sounds like the gibberish he says when picked up, and sometimes just "mask".
  • Dr. Cortex is Sturg, a talkhaus community member with him as his avatar.
  • The time-freezing crates in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped's time trial stages are called "time donuts".
• All Temporary Platforms are referred to as "Yoku Blocks" or "Yokus", after the Mega Man (Classic) series.
• The Roller Bombs from Iconoclasts are "hamburgers" due to their similar appearance.
• 0² from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is "Oxygen"
• Mustache Girl from A Hat in Time is "Robin", because of her hood.
  • Hat Kid is called "Hatricia".
  • The bird enemies in Mafia Town are "Heartless"
• Gordon Freeman is John Freedom or Gordon Human, and later on, some mixture or another of both.
  • Manhacks are referred to as Bees.
  • The enemy helicopter in "Water Hazard" is called Heli-Chan.
  • Fast Zombies are Werewolves, on account of their howling.
  • After getting the Bugbait, Antlions are Family, with John Human Freedom as Dad.
  • The helpful Vortigaunt companion from Episode 2 is lovingly nicknamed Vort.
• Chaotix' client in Sonic Heroes is "Frieza", out of raocow's belief that Chaotix is comparable to the Ginyu Force, as well as the high-pitched filter of the client.
• Any manner of cat-like enemy is "cat planet cat planet cat planet cat", or some combination thereof.
• In Donkey Kong 64, Diddy becomes "DeeDee" and Lanky Kong is "Uncle Larry".
• Black Doom from Shadow the Hedgehog is Evil Pete.
• Squawks the parrot, as appearing in Donkey Kong Country Returns, is referred to as a VTuber, as, when brought into a level, he sits on a branch affixed to the bottom left of the screen, as though posing in front of a green screen.
• Erik and Baleog from The Lost Vikings are "Red" and "Stinky", respectively.
• Bikkuracoil, Spring Man's weapon from Rockman 7 EP, is "Gross Finger"
• The bearded man from Hotline Miami is "Roscoe". He goes through a few names for Biker, eventually settling on "Knife-kun" by the end of the game.
• Miitans, the floating, self-destructing Reaverbots from Mega Man Legends 2, are "Explosion Buddies".
• In Paper Mario 64, raocow quickly took to calling Eldstar "Old Man" after relying on him for many a mid-battle FP boost.
• The prisoners Klonoa rescues in Klonoa: Door to Phantomile are referred to as "feathers", for the symbol used to represent them in the first world.

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• On the other end of the scale, raocow's fans have several affectionate nicknames for him, too, such as 'cowrao', 'the Cow of Rao' and 'Mr. the Cow'.
• Certain types of gameplay moments bring forth other personas:
  • Frustrating gameplay or game design elements may result in a video with an "angrycow" warning.
  • raocow almost always commentates live while playing for the first time, but on the rare occasions that video editing requires it, "postcow" or "post-production cow" or "PPR" makes an appearance.
  • When replaying a long segment that has just been seen (e.g a level that requires going through the first half twice before encountering a branching path, or a perennial "died right at the end" moment), raocow tends to speed up video footage rather than cutting it entirely. He will typically continue commentating in that footage, leading to "chipmunkcow".
• When reminiscing about games of his youth, raocow sometimes refers to his younger self as 'raocalf', but just as often calls himself a 'dumb idiot child'.