CS:GO Pro Players Nicknames & Their Origins - Hellcase Blog

One of the secrets of becoming a popular CS:GO pro player, streamer, or content maker is a catchy nickname your fans will know you by. It’s best to be creative with your nickname and try to come up with a unique and easy-to-remember one.

If you are unsure how to do it right, we gathered stories of how several CS:GO pro players created their nicknames, including s1mple, AdreN, EliGe, and others. Read the article to get inspired or just get in touch with history. Let’s find out what their nicknames mean!

The 10 Most Interesting CS:GO Pro Players Nicknames & Their Meaning

In CS:GO and other video games, a nickname is a unique name that a player chooses to identify themselves online in the game. It is also commonly referred to as a gamer tag, username, or IGN (in-game name).

Nicknames are used to differentiate players from one another, and they can also express a player’s personality or interests. In some games, players may have the option to change their nickname or display name, while in others, the nickname is permanent once it has been chosen.

While some of the CS:GO pro players nicknames are totally random, others can tell a story, and we are here to share these stories with you. If you ever wondered how s1mple or FalleN came up with their nicknames that are now known and praised worldwide, it’s time to finally find out.

In this article, we will reveal the meanings of nicknames that belong to ten popular CS:GO pro players who you must have heard about at least once. These are:

• Stewie2k
• dev1ce
• s1mple
• GuardiaN
• NBK-
• Edward
• AdreN
• FalleN
• EliGE
• DickStacy

Are you ready to discover the truth behind these CS:GO pro players nicknames? Let’s get started!

Jacky ‘Stewie2k’ Yip

Jacky ‘Stewie2k’ Yip is an American professional player who is currently inactive. Right now, he is a streamer and a content creator for Evil Geniuses. A Major winner also used to play for Team Liquid, MIBR, and Cloud9.

Actually, the ”2k” in his nickname does not mean “2 kills”, as you might have thought.

Jacky used to play with his friends a lot, and each of them had names borrowed from Family Guy characters. Yip went with Stewie, but later he met another Stewie in-game and decided he should change his in-game name to stand out. At first, he was thinking of adding 2k14, which meant “2014”, but then he just changed it to “Stewie2k”.

Eventually, he wanted to change his IGN again, but did not proceed with that plan, because by that time, he had gained huge popularity and was known worldwide as “Stewie2k”.

Nicolai ‘Dev1ce’ Reedtz

Nicolai ‘Dev1ce’ Reedtz is a well-known Danish CS:GO athlete who is currently playing for Astralis as the AWPer. Four-time Major winner, he is one of the best CS:GO players in the world. Apart from Astralis, he played for Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Dignitas, Copenhagen Wolves, and other teams. He is the owner of one of the most well-known CS:GO pro player nicknames.

Before settling with “dev1ce”, Nicolai had other CS:GO nicknames: device, devve, Sundevice. In his interview with BLAST, the Danish player stated that his very first IGN was “Exatron”, and he used it as a kid because he liked Transformers.

Later, when he was powering up his PC, a Device Manager window popped up, and he immediately decided to go with “device” as his nickname. In 2016, Reedtz wanted to change his nickname to “devve”, but for whatever reason, Valve hit him with a “no hammer”, so that’s how we got to know dev1ce.

Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev

Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev is a Ukrainian professional CS:GO player for Natus Vincere. One of the best esports athletes in the world, a Major winner, and the MVP record breaker , he himself doesn’t remember how exactly he came up with his nickname, which is actually one of the most popular CS:GO pro player nicknames.

“I can’t remember how I came up with s1mple, I just remember that I added a “1” to the nickname, so it looked a bit more interesting. Other than that, I used “Awesome”, which came from wrestling.” – s1mple in interview with HLTV .

“Awesome” is the name of the theme song used by The Miz, a popular WWE wrestler. The lyrics of this song quite match s1mple’s spirit, so no wonder he took inspiration from it for one of his CS:GO names back in the day.

Also, Sasha is a huge anime fan, and he used a number of anime-themed CS:GO nicknames. For example, right now, his profile name is Ackerman, which is the last name of an Attack of Titan character.

s1mple is also often called “The Undertaker” by English-speaking casters on official tournament streams. This nickname came from a two-part meme video made by SuperstituM in 2016, and it is also inspired by a WWE wrestler.

Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovács

Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovács is a Slovak professional CS:GO player who performed for Natus Vincere, Virtus.Pro, FaZe Clan, and other esports clubs. He appeared in HLTV’s Top Player Ranking six times from 2013 to 2018 and was also recognized as the 2nd best player according to HLTV in 2015.

If you ever played VALORANT, you might think that Ladislav’s IGN is based on the name of a weapon from that game, but that’s not the case here. And it is also not after the name of the Guardian CS:GO skin family.

In one of his interviews, Kovács revealed that he came up with this nickname because he was always carrying and defending his teammates in games they played together.

“I used to play games with my friends, and I was always the better one, so I was always like saving them, defending them. So I felt like guardian is something that shows my background with friends, so that’s why I use the nickname GuardiaN.” – from one of Ladislav’s interviews.

Nathan ‘NBK-‘ Schmitt

Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt is a French professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for Team Falcons. He used to play for VeryGames, Titan, two-time Major-winning LDLC and EnVyUs, G2, and Vitality (Source: Liquipedia ) .

NBK- is an abbreviation for “Natural Born Killer”. When Nathan was reading the manga called Battle Royal, he noticed characters referring to a real movie called Natural Born Killers. Although the player never watched this movie, he decided it was fitting for CS:GO and used the abbreviation as his in-game name.

Throughout his career, he also used different CS:GO names, such as NBKTANK, NBeardK, NBicepsK, and NBKing.

Ioann ‘Edward’ Sukhariev

Ioann ‘Edward’ Sukhariev is a Ukrainian professional CS:GO player and former CS 1.6 player. He began his career in 2014 and joined Natus Vincere in 2010. Later, he played for Astana Dragons and Winstrike Team.

When Ioann was a young kid, he had a haircut similar to the one Edward Scissorhands had: it was long, tousled, and messy. Edward is a character from Tim Burton’s fantasy romance movie starring Johnny Depp. It is one of the most popular works of this director. So, this is one of the few popular nicknames for CS:GO inspired by movie characters.

Dauren ‘AdreN’ Kystaubayev

Dauren ‘AdreN’ Kystaubayev is a Kazakhstani pro player who used to be a part of Astana Dragons, HellRaisers, Gambit Esports and FaZe Clan. He also played for Virtus.Pro and broke Ninjas in Pyjamas’ legendary 87-0 win streak.

Once, Dauren spent an entire day trying to come up with nicknames for CS:GO that would suit an upcoming pro player. Back then, his nickname was Taff1k, a diminutive form of Taff, which was his older brother’s in-game name.

He then heard music playing in the background, and one of the lyrics, “Adrenalin”, caught his attention. The Kazakhstani player liked the way it sounded and figured out that no one else had it. He started using it as his IGN but later shortened it to “AdreN” because it took too long for casters to pronounce.

Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo

Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo is a legendary CS:GO pro player from Brazil, whose career began in 2005 when he started playing CS 1.6 professionally. Today, he is AWPer and an In-Game Leader for Imperial Esports.

Some of the CS:GO pro player nicknames are inspired by other video games, and FalleN is one of them. Gabriel’s brother used to play Magic: The Gathering, which is a tabletop and digital collectible card game popular worldwide.

FalleN borrowed his in-game name from one of the cards he noticed in his brother’s collection, Fallen Angel. However, he decided to shorten his IGN and remove the “Angel” from it at some point in time.

Jonathan ‘EliGe’ Jablonowski

Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski is a North American professional CS:GO player with Polish origins who currently plays for Team Liquid, and is considered one of the best players in the NA scene.

His competitive gaming career began not in CS:GO, but in StarCraft II. He liked watching SeleCT perform, and his nickname was a source of inspiration for the one Jonathan took.

While he was taking a test in his Spanish class, he saw the word “elegir” which translates to “select”, and used it as a base for his nickname. He went with “EliGE” and kept the last letters as capitals to commemorate his favorite StarCraft II player.

Ollie ‘DickStacy’ Tierney

Ollie “DickStacy” Tierney is a retired Australian professional CS:GO player who used to play for Renegades, Greyhound Gaming, and other teams.

Ollie’s nickname is one of the most controversial ones in the CS:GO esports scene as it is consonant with what a male reproductive organ is called.

In 2019, DickStacy tried sending in two inappropriate variants of his signature for Valve to use in his IEM Katowice Major 2019 Autograph stickers.

It is hardly surprising that Valve representatives denied his attempts both times, and he was obliged to come up with an appropriate signature. For the final version, he just used a part of his nickname.

We do not know for sure, but a few sources say that the DickStacy nickname references Richard “Ricky” Stacy, a retired American Call of Duty player, now a team manager for Los Angeles Guerrillas.

To Wrap Up!

Whew, now you know everything you need to know about CS:GO pro players nicknames and how players got them! If you want to come up with a new CS:GO nickname for yourself but find the process challenging, read the tips in our guide on in-game names.

Explore our blog for more articles about CS:GO skins and other cosmetics, in-depth game guides, and esports news. Stay tuned!