Mr Welch earned the sobriquet Neutron Jack by analogy with the neutron bomb, which kills people but leaves buildings intact.

ECONOMIST: Online, straight from the gut and politically incorrect

Kennedy Jr. as John-John, the sobriquet the press bestowed on him when he was a little boy in the White House.

CNN: Brought up to be a good man

In fact, I recently found myself rooting around the web just trying to find out how Notre Dame first got its sobriquet the Fighting Irish.

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The company is--rightly--eager to shed the sobriquet of Government Motors.

FORBES

It was UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon's fondness for travelling by the luxury jet at the taxpayers expense that earned him the sobriquet "Junket Geoff" when he was a junior minister.

BBC: Concorde: Loved by the rich and famous

It is hoped by Ricardians (yes, the small but vocal band of Richard III's supporters have a sobriquet) that the world-wide interest in his disinterment by Leicester University archaeologists will focus attention on his reputation.

WSJ: Andrew Roberts: Shakespeare Has a (Parking) Lot to Answer For

The team acquired the sobriquet Jail Blazers.

FORBES: Rebound

The political connections that earned Goldman the sobriquet Government Sachs have been loosened by the crisis. (Jon Corzine, pictured right above, who was appointed Goldman's CEO in 1994, was for a while governor of New Jersey and his successor, Henry Paulson, left, went on to become President George Bush's treasury secretary.) A press that once put Goldman on a pedestal prefers today to put the boot in.

ECONOMIST: The firm that came to dominate world finance