It may vary from place to place. In Spain it did not decline, just about every king has had a nickname. Since Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic we have had:

- Philip I the Handsome and Joanna I the Mad

- Emperor Charles V, also known as Charles I of Spain.

- Philip II the Prudent King

- Philip III the Pious, nicknamed so due to the lack of any other noticeable qualities.

- Philip IV, the Planet King (or the Hole, according to Quevedo, who called him so because "the more land you take away from him, the greater he becomes).

- Charles II the Bewitched.

- Philip V the Animous, due to his manic-depressive episodes.

- Ferdinand VI, the Just.

- Charles III the Politician or the Best Mayor of Madrid. This latter moniker comes the great program of reforms he undertook in the capital city.

- Charles IV the Hunter, for his fondness for it, lacking any other noticeable qualities.

- Ferdinand VII, the Felonious, for how he betrayed the Spanish liberals and invited a foreign invasion to restore absolutism.

- Isabel II of the Sad Fates, as she ended up exiled after the 1868 Glorious Revolution.

- Alfonso XII the Peacemaker, for with him came peace after a very turbulent 6 years with a revolution, a constitutional foreign monarch, a cantonal revolution, and the III Carlist War.

- Alfonso XIII the African, due to the campaigns in Northern Morocco. In recent times some people, half seriously half in jest, have called him "the Pornographer" as Alfonso XIII was a pioneer of pornographic cinema, charging the Count of Romanones with producing pornographic films in France and importing them for his particular enjoyment.

The only king that lacks a moniker is Luis I, as he did not have enough time to earn himself a nickname. His father Philip V abdicated in 1724 in favour of his son Luis, but young Luis died within months to a case of pneumonia.