The present paper is devoted to the study of nicknames arising as a result of Franco-African contact. The attention of modern linguistics to the problem of nicknames is due to the need to study the dynamics of the anthroponymicon of the African variant of the French language throughout the history of its formation through an integrated approach to the study of linguistic and socio-cultural aspects. Nicknames are a source of research into national-cultural specificity. They form an extremely broad and diverse stratum of the African anthroponymic system. Their formation and functioning is based on the values of the community that uses them. Much of the research relies on the personal experience of the author, who has observed the speech of Africans in an urban setting. The nicknames of Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo were analysed in this paper.