House of the Dragon: What does "sobriquet" mean?

In the latest episode of House of the Dragon, "The Red Dragon and the Gold," there's a scene where King Aegon loses control of a Small Council meeting to his little brother Aemond, who publicly shames the king by showing off how much better at speaking High Valyrian he is, by pointing out that he's planning a military campaign with Criston Cole while Aegon remains ignorant, and generally just pointing out what a collossal screwup Aegon is.

When Aegon asks why he isn't being kept in the loop, Aemond sarcastially says that he had better things to do, including appointing his idiot drinking buddies to the Kingsugard and choosing his "sobriquet."

A sobriquet is a nickname. Aemond is talking here about something Aegon was doing in the first episode of the season: Aegon was sitting on the Iron Throne with his friends trying to come up with a good name. Should it be "Aegon the Dragon-Hearted"? Maybe "Aegon the Magnanimous"? They didn't appear to settle on one. Now that Aegon has crash-landed into a forest after losing a dragon battle, whatever they chose may no longer be applicable. Back to the drawing board!

After this traumatic event, it's possible that Aegon may not care about choosing a nickname at all. Both Aemond and Alicent, Aegon's own mother, pointed out that he's inexperienced and frivolous as a king. If he wants to be taken seriously, he may need to start caring about things other than titles...if he survives his injuries, anyway.

We'll see what happens next when the next episode of House of the Dragon airs on HBO and Max next Sunday, July 14.

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