{"id":809183,"date":"2026-07-19T00:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T00:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809183\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T00:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T00:19:12","slug":"the-best-nicknames-in-afl-history-ranked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809183\/","title":{"rendered":"The best nicknames in AFL history ranked"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Australians pride ourselves on being fast on the wit and quicker on the lip.<\/p>\n<p>Nowhere is this trait quite as self-evident as it is at football clubs, where nicknaming teammates becomes almost as much of a sport as the football itself.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it be for a physical trait, a play on a player&#8217;s name, or an incident of infamy, Australian rules football has a proud history of players nicknaming each other, adorning their mates with aliases creative and otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a look at 21 of the very best that have risen to ubiquity over the journey.<\/p>\n<p>21. Aaron &#8220;Astronaut&#8221; Naughton<\/p>\n<p>The Western Bulldogs&#8217; Aaron Naughton&#8217;s nickname makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an obvious play on his name and ability to soar for speckies and pack marks.<\/p>\n<p>The West Australian is beloved at the Whitten Oval, with the &#8220;Astronaut&#8221; moniker only adding to the picture that his (at times) reckless play and outlandish hairstyles, paint.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-115324\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"AFL2022MELWB043\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AFL2022MELWB043-scaled.jpg.webp\"\/>Aaron Naughton during the 2022 AFL Round 1 match between Melbourne and Western Bulldogs (Photo by Cameron Grimes \/ Zero Digital Media)<br \/>\n<a href=\"#comments\" id=\"joinTheConversation\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"498\" height=\"60\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" id=\"joinTheConversation\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/joinTheConversation-hanger.png.webp\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n        &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                                    \t                &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; Australians pride ourselves on being fast on the wit and quicker on the lip. Nowhere is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-809183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}