Explained: The exact reason why Sunderland AFC are nicknamed the Black Cats | OneFootball

The club have officially had their nickname since just after the turn of the millennium.

Sunderland's 'Black Cats' nickname is one that is infamously synonymous with the club.

Despite their traditional kit livery of red and white stripes, the Wearsiders' pseudonym has such a strong connection to the club.

It's a nickname that, unlike a lot of others - the Hatters, the Robins, the Mariners - isn't replicated by any other club. Maybe that's part of why Black Cats carries so much meaning, because of its solo association.

It's actually quite an apt nickname as well, given the majority of the club's recent history.

Black cats - the animal, not the nickname - are often associated with being a bad luck sign. That feeling of hard times was certainly present at Sunderland for many years during their fall from the Premier League down to League One, and the years spent in the third division.

On the Netflix documentary about the club 'Sunderland 'Til I Die', one woman, after her side's loss in the 2019 play-off final to Charlton Athletic, asked: "Why is it never us celebrating? Why is it never us?"

Luckily for her, and her fellow supporters, the Black Cats' luck has picked up in the last few seasons, with a promotion back to the Championship and a play-off run in their first season back in the second division included in that period.

The nickname has been present through the ups and the downs (quite a lot of them, actually), but how did it come about? When did the club adopt it? And why?

The origins of Sunderland's nickname: the Black Cats

The history of the nickname is one that isn't fully agreed upon. It has been the club's alternative name since it's inception in 1879, but the reason why it was chosen is still uncertain.

The Sunderland Echo wrote in 2020 that, supposedly, in 1805, at the gun battery on the south pier at Roker, one of the soldiers heard a loud howl which came from a black cat.

The battery then became known as the Black Cat Battery. The stadium that Sunderland ended up playing their first games at was near this site, and this is where the nickname is said to have come from.

The legend of the nickname was heightened when a Sunderland fan apparently brought along a black cat in his coat pocket to the 1937 FA Cup final against Preston, which the Black Cats won 3-1 in front of a crowd of 93,495.

It's not a name that is synonymous with Sunderland because of its use by its own supporters though. Writers and reporters often use it as an alternate way to reference the club in articles like this. It's used in that context more than by their own fanbase nowadays, although there were more obvious examples of supporters adopting it back in the day.

In 2000, the club held a vote on what its official nickname should be, and they decided on the Black Cats. That's how Sunderland's nickname came to be.

Sunderland's alternative nickname

Like with many clubs, there is often more than one way to Sunderland AFC, other than its current name. As well as the Black Cats, the Rokerites was also one that was informally adopted by some.

You can understand its origins to some extent given the club's proximity to the Roker area, as demonstrated by the aforementioned gun battery story, but how or when it came about is, like the Black Cats nickname, unclear as well.