The Diehards, the Cherrypickers and the Glorious Glosters: British Regimental Nicknames

September 22, 2026

British regiments collect nicknames the way they collect battle honours, and the nicknames are frequently more revealing. They are not marketing. They were given by other soldiers, or occasionally by enemies, and they usually record something specific that happened.

Names that came from a moment in a battle

The Diehards — the Middlesex Regiment, from an order reportedly given by a mortally wounded commanding officer telling his men to die hard. Whether the words were exactly those is arguable; the name stuck for two centuries.
The Glorious Glosters — the Gloucestershire Regiment, from their stand at the Imjin River in Korea, one of the most celebrated actions in modern British military history.
The Slashers — another Gloucestershire name, from an earlier incident, and a good example of a regiment carrying several nicknames from different centuries at once.

Names that came from what they wore

The Green Howards — from a period when regiments were known by their colonel's name. With two Howards commanding, the two were distinguished by their facing colours. The nickname eventually became the official title, which is extraordinarily rare.
The Cherrypickers — the 11th Hussars, associated with their distinctive crimson trousers, and with a story about being surprised in an orchard.
The Buffs — from the buff-coloured facings, and another case where the nickname became part of the formal title.

Names that came from the job

The Gunners — the Royal Artillery, and simply the rank title generalised to the whole regiment.
The Sappers — the Royal Engineers, from the men who dug the saps in siege warfare.
The Redcaps — the Royal Military Police, from the red cap cover that makes them findable.
Jimmy — not a regiment but the figure of Mercury on the Royal Signals badge, and used affectionately for the corps itself.

Names with an uncomfortable origin

Not all of them are cheerful, and it is worth being honest about that. The Steelbacks, associated with the Northamptonshire tradition, refers to soldiers' endurance under flogging in an era when the lash was routine military punishment. It is a nickname about the capacity to absorb brutality, and it has been carried with pride for exactly that reason.

Military nicknames often preserve history that official accounts smooth over, which is a large part of what makes them worth knowing.

Why nicknames matter to a collector

Three practical reasons:

They appear on things. Informal unit items, association material, sports and social insignia frequently use the nickname rather than the formal title.
They are used in listings. Sellers describe items by the name they know, so searching for the formal title alone will miss material.
They survive amalgamation. Battalion nicknames within large modern regiments carry the older regimental identity forward, and knowing them is how you trace a modern item back to its predecessor.

The pattern behind them

The thing that strikes you, once you have collected a few dozen, is how consistently they come from outside. Regiments rarely name themselves. Nicknames are conferred by other soldiers, by enemies, occasionally by the press, and they stick when they are accurate. That is why they are worth knowing: they record what a regiment was actually thought of, rather than what it would have chosen to be called.

The nicknames that became official

A handful crossed over from slang into the formal title, which almost never happens in any institution and is remarkable in one as tradition-bound as the British Army:

The Green Howards — a colonel's name and a facing colour, used so universally that it displaced the official designation.
The Buffs — from the facing colour, and carried in the regimental title for a very long time.

Both took generations. The Army does not adopt a nickname quickly; it adopts one when denying it has become pointless.

Nicknames given by the enemy

Some of the most enduring came from the other side, which is a particular kind of compliment. Where a nickname records what an opponent called a unit, it is usually a reference to something the unit did that the enemy found notable, and regiments have generally been delighted to adopt them.

Names of this kind are worth checking carefully, because the stories attached to them have often grown in the telling. Regimental museums are the place to settle which version is documented and which is tradition.

Corps nicknames and rank titles

Several of the best-known are not really nicknames at all but rank titles generalised to the whole organisation — Gunners, Sappers, Signallers, Riflemen, Troopers, Craftsmen. Each of these identifies an arm of service instantly, and each is a genuine official title rather than slang.

For anyone identifying insignia, this is practically useful: a rank slide naming any of these places the item immediately, which is more than most loose insignia will tell you.

Using nicknames when you buy

Search both ways. A seller clearing a house will list "Glosters" or "the Dukes" because that is what the family called it, and a search for the formal regimental title will not find it. Some of the better finds in militaria come from searching the informal name that nobody else thought to try.