The Stories Behind CS2 Pro Players' Nicknames

Curious about where the top 20 HLTV players get their nicknames? This article dives into the origins and stories behind the unique names of your favorite CS2 pros, from ZywOo to Twistzz.

Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut

This one is a funny one. According to an interview with Jason “Moses” O’Toole, ZywOo got his nickname… from somebody else. As he played classic French MMO Dofus, he went by “Daredevil”, but wanted an original nickname and enlisted the help of his cousin. His cousin eventually suggested Zywoo, because… Zywoo was the first player to reach level 200 in the game. Thus, ZywOo was born and eclipsed his predecessor’s achievement by winning a Counter-Strike major!

Nikola “NiKO” Kovacs

We’re not sure you need an article to explain this one, but we feel that it’s an awesome trick, as not only does he include his first name’s shorthand, but his last name as well — Ni(kola)Kovacs! Simple, yet really decent!

Robin “ropz” Kool

With a name like Robin Kool, you’d expect ropz to have a cooler nickname, but in the end, it’s a simple name with a simple origin story. Ropz is apparently a very common nickname for people named Robin in Estonia, but his mom’s friend called him “Ropzkah” which he used as his nickname, until English-speaking people (ugh, the worst), decided it was too hard, so he shortened it back to ropz.

Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov

This Ukrainian super-sniper really pulled a fast one on us, as his answer to the question of what his nickname means was literally “I made it up, it has no meaning.” Well, in that case, Mr m0NESY, keep your secrets. Although, we can imagine the word “Money” was the starting point.

Lotan “Spinx” Giladi

We don’t have an origin story for Spinx from the man himself, that’s why we’re going to have to theorize, and our theory is one stolen from the HLTV forums, that his nickname is actually Spin X. Why? Who knows. Somebody’s going to have to ask him.

Alvaro “SunPayus” Galvar

The former Movistar Riders star is another enigma. Redditors theorize that it’s a bastardization of the word “senpai”, or the Spanish “pais” meaning country. Sunny Country? Who knows? Perhaps one day somebody will get to ask Alvaro.

Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev

While he’s still on his CS2 sabbatical, s1mple’s nickname has a similar origin to m0NESY’s… He just came up with it. And added a 1 to make it interesting. That’s all. Think that’s boring? WELL HOW DID YOUR NICKNAME COME TO BE?

Dmytry “sh1ro” Sokolov

We couldn’t find a source for sh1ro’s nickname, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it’s related to the Japanese word “Shiro”, meaning white. It’s been around in manga, anime and other media, and you probably know somebody with a similar name, so hey… one of them is a CS2 pro!

Martin “stavn” Lund

While we don't have a source for this one, the dictionary came in handy here, as stavn means “anvil” in Danish, meaning we’re dealing with Martin “The Anvil” Lund here, which is pretty cool. And we’re guessing that that’s how stavn’s nickname came to be. It’s just bloody cool.

Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants

The dictionary saves us once again, as we couldn’t find any meaning for the life of us. Broky doesn’t have a meaning in Latvian (it does mean “shotgun” in Czech, but that’s a longshot), and we don’t really know what’s the meaning behind it. Is it a reference to breaking stuff? We’re going to have to ask him some day!

Nikolai “dev1ce” Reedtz

dev1ce’s nickname apparently stems from the silly phrasing of “computer device” that we’d see on older PCs, however, what’s more interesting is that his name has evolved over a few times, in the public eye no less, as he was already competing in Valve sanctioned events, and needed permission to change anything. He started off with Device (fun fact, he also invented Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander’s nickname!), but then he decided to switch to “devve” in 2016, a shortened version of the name, before changing it back to… “dev1ce” a few months later. He kept that ever since, though.

David “frozen” Cernansky

We couldn’t find a source for frozen’s nickname, but we do believe it’s pretty self-explanatory. We doubt it’s a reference to the Disney film, but we do believe it just sounded cool to a young player. By the way, frozen’s been playing pro since he was 13. Can you believe it?

Nemanja “huNter-” Kovacs

NiKo’s cousin doesn’t have an epic origin story behind his nickname, but hey, at least it’s easy to understand. Being a hunter is just the ultimate CS2 goal. You want to hunt other players, and avoid being hurt in the process. huNter-’s presence in the Top 20 shows that he’s skilled in that regard.

Guy “NertZ” Iluz

This one took some digging. With no interview, and not even a forum theory, we had to put our detective hats on and found “נערץ” in Hebrew which transliterates to “n’rtz” in English and can be written as nertz if you want to make it a nickname. What does it mean? “Revered”, which is a hell of a nickname! But that’s just a theory… A CS2 THEORY!

Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard

This is also speculation, as most younger players don’t really have to answer questions about nicknames (we’re guessing gaming journos got tired of getting “I just made it up” as an answer), and unless they’re really popular, redditors and HLTV forum users don’t really go as far as have theories. So for jabbi… We’re guessing it’s a similar story to Ropz, jabbi just sounds like a potential pet name for Jacob (note that it’s pronounced “yabbi”), so we’re going to go with that as our explanation.

Benjamin “blameF” Bremer

We’re not sure of the origin here, but we have some theories. A lot of questions (without answers) have been asked about the F in Benjamin’s name, but we have our own theory. Blame is known as a bit of a shitposter, so we suspect that this name is a bit of self-deprecating humor on his part. “Blame me!” he says. The F? We suspect it’s a joke on “press F to pay respects” - but without asking him, we’ll never know!

Emil “Magisk” Reif

Finally, an older dude! We’re celebrating because those have a lot of sources to confirm their name origins. Magisk is simply… Magic in Danish. And Magisk used to be called Magiskb0y, before deciding he’s no longer a boy (and for unknown reasons not deciding to call himself Magiskm4n) and dropping the suffix. Magic Boy is a pretty generic nickname, so we’re guessing a young Emil really liked Harry Potter or something, and decided to throw that into his online life.

Casper “cadiaN” Moller

This one’s hard. cadiaN’s been around for a while, but we couldn’t find a source for his nickname. Our suspicion is that it has to do with Cadian troops from Warhammer 40k, but it might just be a spin on Casper, or a random name generation. We’re going to ask Casper what he had in mind during his next reddit AMA, since he loves those!

Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato

We hadn’t had one this obvious since NiKo. KSCERATO is simply… K. S. Cerato, as we believe S. is his second initial, very common in Brazil. There’s not much to talk about here, so let’s move on to our final player!

Russell “Twistzz” Van Dulken

There isn’t a lot of speculation online about this, and since Twistzz has played CS since a very young age, we’re guessing this one is similar to s1mple and mONESY, it just sounded cool. I mean, Twisting does sound cool, and his playstyle does leave players twisted in knots, so we’ve got that covered.

Conclusion

And that’s it! The Top 20 HLTV’s nicknames explained! We hope you enjoyed this article (especially if some of these names were invading your shower thoughts). What is your favorite CS2 pro nickname? Let us know on our social media, and if you want to be nicknamed “Skinpro” be sure to check out PirateSwap and trade for awesome CS2 skins!

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