Playing Card Nicknames: Queens

Depending on whether the deck in question is English or French, the queen has different names. In the French deck, the queens have names based on history. Generally, the English deck court cards are not based on history. They may, however, have nicknames.

The usual rank of the queen is 12th in the hierarchy, starting with ace, that is, between the jack and the king. In decks in which the knight is a rank, the queen is 13th. In tarot decks, for example, the knight ranks between the jack and queen. Poker decks have no knight.

Specific Queens

Queen of Clubs

In the English deck, the figure faces forward, tilted slightly to the left. She holds a flower in her right hand like the other queens.

Queen of Clubs, English Deck

In the French deck, the figure faces forward, tilted to the right. She is the only queen not holding a flower.

In the French deck, she is known as Argine, which may be an anagram of regina (queen in Latin), or a corruption of Argea, a daughter of King Adrastus of Argos in Greek mythology.

Queen of Clubs, French Deck

Queen of Diamonds

In the English deck, the figure faces forward, tilted to the right. She holds a flower in her right hand.

Queen of Diamonds, English Deck

In the French deck, the figure faces forward, tilted slightly to the right. A flower grows out of her left shoulder.

Queen of Diamonds, French Deck

In the French deck, she is known as Rachel, which probably comes from Jacob’s second wife in the Bible.

Queen of Hearts

In the English deck, the figure faces forward, tilted slightly to the left. She holds a flower in her left hand. This is the only figure not facing the opposite direction of the French counterpart.

Queen of Hearts, English Deck

In the English deck, legend has it that the queen of hearts represents Elizabeth of York, queen consort of Henry VII of England. The headdress the queen wears under her crown is historically of the early Tudor era.

In the French deck, the figure faces forward, tilted to the left. She holds a flower in her right hand.

Queen of Hearts, English Deck

She is known in the French deck as Judith, which may come from the Biblical Judith, who helped save the Jews from Assyrian rule by beheading their leader, Holofernes (also spelled Holophernes), an invading general of Nebuchadnezzar. The name may also come from Judith, Duchess of Bavaria, who lived in the tenth century.

Queen of Spades

In the English deck, the figure faces forward, tilted to the right. She holds a flower in her right hand and a scepter in her left, the only queen to be holding such.

Queen of Spades, English Deck

In the English deck, the queen of spades also has several less traditional nicknames.

She is called Black Maria, derivation unknown. In home games, Black Maria is a form of seven-card stud in which the pot is split between the holder of the high hand and the player who has the queen of spades in the hole. For both meanings, Maria is pronounced Mariah (like Ms. Carey).

The queen of spades is sometimes called Calamity Jane, named for the markswoman of the Old West (Martha Jane Canary, who was buried in Deadwood, SD, in 1903, next to Wild Bill Hickok), whose name some say was associated with prophecies of doom.

She is also called Molly Hogan, derivation unknown.

One more nickname, Slippery Ann, probably comes from the game of hearts, in which that card has great importance and thus was given a nickname. The name may also have come from the Mr. Fortune stories of Henry Christopher Bailey (1878-1961), an English author of detective fiction, one of whose works was Slippery Ann (or The Queen of Spades) (1944). The nickname is also spelled slippery Ann (that is, with a small s).

In the French deck, the figure is seen in profile, facing left. She holds a flower in her right hand.

Queen of Spades, French Deck

She is known in the French deck as Pallas, possibly named after the Greek goddess Athena, also known as Pallas Athene, the virgin patron of Athens.

The Official Dictionary of Poker, from which comes much of this information, is available as a Kindle book on Amazon.

Next: king nicknames ♠

Michael Wiesenberg has been a columnist for Card Player since 1988. He has written or edited many books about poker, and has also written extensively about computers, computer languages, and puzzles. Wiesenberg constructs crosswords for newspapers, magazines, books, and smartphone apps. Send benedicites, brickbats, and bidding to [email protected].