Cockroaches. Just the name alone makes one recoil in disgust. While they don't bite or carry potent venom, their repulsive aesthetics, filthy habitats, and—most importantly—their ungodly resilience and reproductive speed have secured them the number one spot on the list of vermin humans despise most. Calling someone a 'cockroach' is a classic insult for a reason.

Yet, some game characters bear this dishonourable moniker. Characters like Pheromosa from Pokémon or Cockatrimon from Digimon are explicitly designed after them, so it’s hardly a surprise. But others? They’re perfectly decent humans, humanoids, or even adorable. They get labelled as 'cockroaches' simply because they look the part or possess that trademark, stubborn vitality. Today, we’re rounding up the victims of this cruel fate.

General Wesley from Cyphers. Despite being a non-powered individual, he’s a formidable retired general. While classified as a supporter, he boasts top-tier HP and high crit stats, meaning he’s mostly played as a ranged damage dealer (dps-supporter). Wesley’s greatest strength is his sheer survival instinct. Positioned in the third line, further back than most ranged carries, his ranged flinch, knockdown basic attacks, and those pesky mines make him a nightmare for enemies to engage.

Even if you do catch him, he’ll just slip away using his invincibility skill, 'Emergency Escape,' and heal himself. This resilience earned him the nickname 'Wes-roach.' While it’s often used as a slur for 'parasitic' players who contribute nothing to victory, it also pays homage to the legendary veterans who simply refuse to die, rolling and healing through everything. Plus, his default dark brown outfit, which has a distinct sheen, certainly didn't help his case.

Another character branded with the roach label is the 5-star ranger hero, Kanon, from Epic Seven. A specialist in aerial combat and bombing, she’s an adorable character who refers to herself as 'Non-non.' Her performance is solid, and her design is cute, making her quite popular. There’s no lore reason for her to be despised, yet some players insist on calling her a 'cockroach.' The reason? It’s all in the flight gear.

Kanon is a bombing automaton in a flight suit, and those sleek, dark, wing-like plates on her shoulders are the culprit. Cockroaches use their hard outer wings and the inner wings beneath to flutter about, and Kanon’s layered wings look exactly like a roach ready to take flight. The spherical bombs tucked under those wings? They’ve been dubbed 'eggs.' Top that off with a black twin-tail hairstyle that looks remarkably like antennae, and the transformation is complete.

Aatrox from League of Legends also wears this badge of dishonour. He might look like a glass cannon at first glance, but his powerful passive lifesteal gives him such absurd sustainability that he’s often tagged as a 'tank.' In the past, his passive allowed him to revive with 30% HP upon taking fatal damage, keeping him annoyingly relevant in fights.

Since his rework, his healing and recovery have only become more potent. Watching an Aatrox who looks like he’s about to kick the bucket at 'low health' suddenly sustain himself through constant lifesteal is genuinely chilling. Add in his dark, greasy-looking exterior, patches of exposed red skin, and the way he hops around with his wings spread, and you’ve got a nightmare. After getting clobbered by him a few times, you can’t help but think of him as a 'giant American cockroach that crawled out of hell.' While LoL is full of characters branded as 'parasites' due to performance or playstyle, Aatrox is special because he earned this nickname through pure design and gameplay flow.

Back in 2019, we introduced a term in our '[Ranking man] Top 5 slang derived from games' article: 'Sin-bak-ha-da.' It’s a popular Korean slang for 'fresh and creative.' Its origin? The Paladin from World of Warcraft. Back in the original days, Alliance Paladins were infamous for their irritating resilience and their omnivorous ability to equip almost any gear.

Horde-side communities, fueled by a mix of envy and spite, dubbed them 'cockroaches' (Ba-kwi-beol-le), leading to the prefix 'Bak' for 'Protection Paladin' (Bo-bak) and 'Retribution Paladin' (Jing-bak). 'Holy Paladin' (Sin-seong-gi-sa) naturally became 'Sin-bak,' which eventually morphed into the slang for anything 'fresh.' While it started as a bitter insult from the Horde, it’s become ancient history now that faction-swapping is a standard service and the rivalry has cooled. Regardless, the term 'Sin-bak' and the cockroach imagery remain; I suspect this nickname will outlive us all for another century.

Miyuki Kotobuki, the heroine of Tokimeki Memorial 2. Her defining keyword is 'misfortune.' Her name means 'Beautiful Fortune,' yet she is the absolute icon of bad luck. Being hit by a dump truck is her daily routine, and because her birthday is January 1st—the Japanese New Year—even her own family tends to forget it. Even in her ending, she’s either sent flying by a truck or snagged by a fishing rod. She is truly the vessel for all of the world's 'unfair' misery.

Her nickname? You guessed it: cockroach. The reason is simple. It’s her stubborn vitality, surviving through every life-threatening ordeal thrown her way. Furthermore, her voluminous long hair and the two strands of 'fool's hair' sticking up look vaguely like a cockroach from behind. Crucially, her surname 'Kotobuki' sounds eerily similar to 'Gokiburi,' the Japanese word for cockroach. There was simply no escaping this fate.