The phrase 'nicknamed after' is correct and can be used in written English.
For example: Bob was nicknamed after the actor Robert Redford.
Cue pandemonium and righteous anger from Die Schanzer (Ingolstadt are nicknamed after the city fortress).
A high school kid in a decidedly unliterary North Dakota town is nicknamed after a beast from "Beowulf"?
We even have a serial killer nicknamed after our area – Kenneth Erskine, the "Stockwell strangler", convicted of killing seven women, and suspected of having killed a further four.
The son of Robert Guiscard (the Astute) and his first wife, Alberada, Bohemond was christened Marc but nicknamed after a legendary giant named Bohemond.
The terrorist has been dubbed "jihadi John" because of his reported membership of a trio of UK-born terrorists fighting with Isis in Syria nicknamed after The Beatles.
And, despite a lengthy trawl through the IUCN archives we're struggling to find any team nicknamed after a species so endangered.
The women's team is nicknamed Nadeshiko, after a pink flower that symbolizes classic Japanese beauty.
The Japanese team is nicknamed Nadeshiko after a kind of dianthus flower.
Robots nicknamed Barry (after the manufacturer) stack sugar bags, and unmanned trains ferry sugar-laden pallets.
George Leybourne, nicknamed Champagne Charlie after his most famous song, was a star in the late 1800s.
Havel was a chubby and awkward child, nicknamed "chrobak" after "a type of cumbersome beetle".
