the.com/sobriquet

means A nickname, especially a descriptive or affectionate one used in place of a person's real name.

from Borrowed directly from French sobriquet, which once also meant 'a chuck under the chin' before settling into 'nickname.' Its deeper roots are murky — possibly tied to an old word for 'joke' or 'mockery' — but French speakers had it meaning nickname by the 1600s, and English simply adopted the word wholesale, keeping its silent 't' as a tiny badge of its foreign passport.