The undisputed king of watch brands, Rolex occupies a realm all its own. No other watchmaker even approaches its 32 percent share of the market, the closest being Cartier, with 8 percent.
So elevated is the brand that it even has its own vocabulary: Its proprietary alloy of rose gold is called Everose; its stainless-steel blend, Oystersteel; its two-tone gold-and-steel construction, Rolesor; and its proprietary ceramic, Cerachrom.
Beyond this official Rolex lexicon, collectors have developed nicknames for specific models, running the gamut from Batman and Starbucks to Hulk and Pepsi. Based on the features and colors of the watches they represent, these monikers are shorthand ways to describe and date them, and even identify their materials. None is derogatory — a nickname implies fondness, after all, or in the case of Rolex collectors, devotion. All are terms of endearment. Here’s a quick lesson on how to speak Rolex.
The Rolex Pepsi
The GMT-Master II boasts the most nicknames of any Rolex collection, and the Pepsi is its most enduring. The model’s bezel is half red and half blue, like the Pepsi logo, but Rolex often refers to the color scheme as the BLRO (bleu/rouge, or blue/red).
The Rolex Coke
The GMT-Master II Coke, which debuted in 1982, has an aluminum bezel colored black and red, like the Coke logo. It was made in two references, 16760 and 16710.
The Rolex Root Beer
The Rolex GMT Master Root Beer, in steel and yellow gold with a gold-and-brown bezel, is much warmer and more exotic than its starker Coke and Pepsi cousins. Introduced in 1970, it was discontinued in 2006 before returning in 2018 with a brown-and-black bezel made of Cerachrom ceramic, in place of previous versions’ anodized aluminum.
The Rolex Batman
The soda nicknames went on hiatus when the GMT-Master II Reference 116710BLNR Batman came along, in 2013. Its black-and-blue Cerachrom bezel was just too close a match to the Caped Crusader’s costume, although it has also been called the Bruiser, because of its resemblance to a black eye.
The Rolex Batgirl
When Rolex reintroduced the Batman in 2019, it was immediately nicknamed the Batgirl, presumably because its new Jubilee bracelet seemed more feminine or at least better suited to a dress watch, which was the reason that bracelet style had been offered on the Root Beer.
The Rolex Sprite
The Sprite, a GMT-Master II introduced in 2022 with a black dial and green-and-black Cerachrom bezel, returned to the tradition of naming models in the collection after soda brands.
The Rolex Hulk
The Submariner collection, all of whose variations have Oyster bracelets, lays claim to the second-most nicknames in the Rolex world. The Hulk, officially called the Oyster Submariner Date, got its sobriquet because the green of its dial and Cerachrom bezel matches the hue of the Marvel comic superhero’s skin.
The Rolex Starbucks
The Rolex Starbucks, a Submariner Date Oystersteel, was essentially a 2020 relaunch of the Kermit — which had a similar black dial and green bezel — but with a Cerachrom rather than aluminum insert. The updated model got an updated nickname, presumably because Starbucks was a more current popular-culture reference than the Muppet.
The Rolex Panda
The name Panda is bestowed on any watch with a white dial and black subdials at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock, an arrangement that resembles the face of a panda with a white fur face and black eyes and nose.
The Rolex Bluesy
Introduced in 1984, the Rolex Submariner Bluesy, Reference 16803, got its nickname from its blue dial and bezel, which is incorporated in a steel-and-gold Rolesor construction.
