Atletico Madrid Nicknames: Colchoneros, Indios and Rojiblancos

Four names attach themselves to Atletico Madrid in Spanish, and supporters use all of them without much thought about where they came from. One has a documented origin that official sources agree on. One is purely descriptive. One is genuinely contested, with at least three explanations in circulation and no way to choose between them. The fourth is simply the club’s own name, worn as a badge.

Colchoneros: the Mattress-Makers

This is the oldest and the most firmly established. Colchonero means mattress-maker, and the name comes from the shirts.

The explanation that both LaLiga’s own account and Spanish reference works give is the same: in the Madrid of the post-Civil-War years, mattresses were covered in a heavy striped cloth known as ticking, and the ticking was red and white. The team playing on the banks of the Manzanares wore exactly that pattern. The resemblance was close enough, and mattresses common enough as a household object, that the association stuck.

Two things are worth noticing about it. The first is that the nickname is later than the shirts: it belongs to the 1940s, three decades after the club adopted the stripes in 1911, and it describes a resemblance rather than a decision. The second is that the same cloth sits at the centre of one of the competing theories about why the club chose red and white in the first place, on the grounds that ticking was the cheapest striped material available. The nickname does not prove that theory, but it does show how thoroughly the two things were linked in the public mind. The full argument about the colours sets out all three accounts.

Rojiblancos: the Red-and-Whites

The plainest of the four, and the one that needs least explanation: rojiblanco simply means red-and-white. It is used across Spanish football for any club in those colours, which in Spain alone includes Athletic Bilbao, Sevilla, Sporting Gijon and Rayo Vallecano among others, so it identifies Atletico only in context.

Its usefulness is that it is neutral. Colchoneros carries a faint edge of the joke it started as; rojiblancos is what a newspaper uses in a match report. It dates from no particular moment, being descriptive of a kit that has looked essentially the same since 1911.

Indios: the Contested One

Here the documented record runs out. Spanish and English reference works both list indios among the club’s nicknames and neither explains it. What exists instead is a set of competing accounts, none of which has become the accepted version.

The explanation most often repeated is a squad-building one. When restrictions on signing foreign players were relaxed, the club recruited a wave of South American talent, and rival supporters began using los indios in reference to those signings. The label is then said to have hardened when the Mexican striker Hugo Sanchez arrived in 1981 and was nicknamed El Indio by opponents.

A second account is geographical rather than sporting: the club’s ground sat on the bank of the Manzanares, camped by the river, and the image of a settlement on a riverbank did the rest.

A third is oppositional. Real Madrid are los blancos, the whites. Casting the neighbours across the city as los indios set one name against the other, and rivalries have generated worse.

These are not variations on a single story the way the shirt theories are. They are three different mechanisms, and the sources that carry them are secondary. Anyone stating one of them as fact is choosing. What can be said plainly is that the name belongs to the 1970s and after, that it began outside the club rather than inside it, and that supporters adopted it anyway, which is the usual fate of nicknames meant as insults.

Atleticos: the Name Itself

The fourth listed nickname is barely a nickname: atleticos, from the club’s own name, Club Atletico de Madrid. It matters mainly because the name took four decades and a war to settle.

The club was founded in 1903 as Athletic Club Sucursal de Madrid, the Madrid branch of Athletic Bilbao. It became independent in 1921. In 1939 it merged with the air force club Aviacion Nacional to become Athletic Aviacion de Madrid. In mid-1940 a decree banned foreign names, and the club became Atletico Aviacion de Madrid. On 14 December 1946 the board voted to drop the military association, and on 6 January 1947 it settled on Club Atletico de Madrid, the name it has carried ever since. The club history follows that sequence in full.

So atleticos is the one name on this list that supporters gave themselves, and it took until 1947 to be available.

Which Names Are Safe to Use as Fact

For anyone writing about the club rather than shouting for it, the distinction is worth keeping straight. Colchoneros has an origin that official and encyclopedic sources agree on. Rojiblancos is descriptive and needs no origin. Atleticos follows the club’s legal name and is documented to the day. Indios is the one to hedge: real, widely used, and genuinely unexplained.

Why are Atletico Madrid called Colchoneros?

Because their red-and-white striped shirts looked like the striped ticking used to cover mattresses in post-war Madrid. Colchonero means mattress-maker. The nickname dates from the 1940s, roughly thirty years after the club adopted the stripes.

What does Rojiblancos mean?

Simply "red-and-whites". It is used for any Spanish club in those colours, Athletic Bilbao, Sevilla, Sporting Gijon and Rayo Vallecano among them, so it identifies Atletico only from context.

Why are Atletico Madrid called Indios?

No source settles it. Three explanations circulate: a wave of South American signings once restrictions on foreign players were relaxed, later reinforced when Hugo Sanchez joined in 1981 and was called El Indio; the ground's position camped on the bank of the Manzanares; and a straight opposition to Real Madrid's los blancos. Major reference works list the nickname without explaining it.

When did the club get the name Atletico de Madrid?

On 6 January 1947. The board had voted on 14 December 1946 to drop the military association carried since the 1939 merger with Aviacion Nacional. Before that the club had been Athletic Club Sucursal de Madrid (1903), Athletic Aviacion de Madrid (1939) and Atletico Aviacion de Madrid (1940).

Do Atletico supporters use these nicknames themselves?

Yes, including the ones that started as jokes at the club's expense. Colchoneros and indios both began outside the club and were adopted anyway, which is the usual fate of a nickname meant as an insult.