Football First XI: Players' nicknames

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A nickname is not something bestowed on every footballer. Just adding a 'y' to the end of a player's surname does not count either.

But down the years there have been some glorious monikers bandied about the game, some which made perfect sense, some which made no sense at all.

And where they all came from to begin with is a mystery in itself.

Below is a list of footballers' nicknames -- not necessarily the best or the worst, just the most interesting, bizarre, apt, inventive or plain humorous.

You are sure to have your own suggestions for great nicknames down the years, so why not let us know in the Sound Off box at the bottom of the article?

1. Ariel Ortega -- The Little Donkey
If there's one thing a footballer doesn't want to be referred to, it's a donkey. But Ortega, a slight, sly, skilful forward, was anything but an ass. Perhaps Argentine fans were showing a wonderful sense of irony.

2. El Hadji Diouf -- Serial Killer
This is the case of the disappearing nickname. Liverpool thought they had pulled off a huge coup by signing Diouf, who shone at the 2002 World Cup. But his $15.4m price tag proved to be a massive rip-off when the Senegal forward flopped spectacularly. The Serial Killer, so called for ice-coolness in front of goal, is now better known for serially spitting -- twice at fans and once at another player. Which of your favorite nicknames have we missed off the list?

3. Fitz Hall -- One Size
Not a player known to many people outside the UK, Hall is a journeyman defender of limited ability currently plying his trade for Queens Park Rangers in England's second tier. Yet he will always be fondly recalled in lists such as this one, with the immortal nickname of One Size, as in "one size fits all." Whoever came up with it is going straight to football heaven.

4. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer -- The Baby-Faced Assassin
For more than a decade, when a game was slipping away from Manchester United, off the bench would trot Norwegian striker Solskjaer to plunder an inevitable, vital goal. Just ask Bayern Munich. His nickname may have been self-explanatory but that made it no less true, and supersubs come no more deadly or youthful-looking.

5. Emilio Butragueno -- The Vulture
One of Europe's most feared strikers in the 1980s, the predatory Butragueno has one of the finest nicknames of them all. The shrewd Spaniard always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, circling the defense before pouncing to score, often from inside the penalty box. Then he would eat the goalkeeper.

6. Roberto Baggio -- The Divine Ponytail
There's no getting away from Baggio's divine skills, his ability to beat a man and to start and finish an attack. The Italian wasn't considered the best player in the world for nothing. But did he really need that ponytail? For the sake of his nickname he did, which also related to his Buddhist beliefs.

7. Bruce Grobbelaar -- Clown Prince
The South African goalkeeper's surname means "clumsy" in loosely translated Afrikaans. The agile yet erratic Grobbelaar was the loose cannon in Liverpool's otherwise metronomic dominance of English football in the 1980s. He was capable of just about anything -- from amazing saves to incredible blunders, from walking on his hands to European Cup-winning wobbly knees.

8. Vincenzo Montella -- The Little Aeroplane
Sometimes nicknames develop from a player's goal celebrations and this was the case for Montella. The Italian striker would stretch his arms out and run around the pitch after scoring. He was also small. It didn't take fans long to put the two things together.

9. Fabrizio Ravanelli -- The White Feather
Having seen his hair go fade from gray to white by the time he was 14, Italian striker Ravanelli made a point of not dying it. Instead, it became his trademark. "Floating" in behind defenses for a string of clubs across Europe in the 1990s and early 2000s, Ravanelli was a goal threat wherever he played.

10. Ray Wilkins -- The Crab
While others on this list have nicknames that suggest a killer instinct or an attribute to fear, Wilkins was likened to a sand-loving crustacean. Also known as Butch or Square-ball, the English midfielder's game was based on retaining possession, which often saw him pass the ball sideways. Boom boom.

11. Gabriel Batistuta -- Batigol
The Argentine hitman was maybe the best around for a period in the 1990s -- fearsomely strong, quick, with a thunderbolt shot and a goalscoring record the equal of anyone. That Batistuta's nickname included the word "gol" is as good as it gets for a striker.