Sunderland's official nickname is The Black Cats.
They have other nicknames, such as The Rokerites, Roker Men, the Light Brigade, the Miners and the Sols.
After leaving Roker Park for the Stadium of Light in 1997, the club decided on a vote to settle the nickname for the last time.
The Black Cats won the majority of the 11,000 votes, beating off other suggestions such as the Light Brigade, the Miners, the Sols and the Mackems.
There is a long historical link between black cats and Sunderland, including the "Black Cat Battery", a battery gun based on the River Wear.
Around the early 1800s, the southern side of the River Wear contained four gun batteries, which guarded the river mouth during the Napoleonic wars.
In 1805, the battery was manned by local militia, the Sunderland Loyal Volunteers, one of whom was a cooper by trade named Joshua Dunn. He was said to have "fled from the howling of an approaching black cat, convinced by the influence of the full moon and a warming dram or two that it was the devil incarnate".
From that point onwards the John Paul Jones Battery was known as the Black Cat Battery.
A Sunderland supporter, Billy Morris, took a black cat in his top pocket as a good luck charm to the 1937 FA Cup final in which Sunderland brought home the trophy for the first time.
During the 1960s a black cat lived in Roker Park, fed and watered by the football club.
Since the 1960s the emblem of the Sunderland A.F.C. Supporters Association has been a black cat.
As well as the "Team of All Talents" at the turn of the 20th century, Sunderland were known as the "Bank of England club" during the 1950s.
This was a reference to the club's spending in the transfer market at the time, which saw the transfer-record broken twice.
At the beginning of the 2006–07 season, the purchase of the club by the Irish Drumaville Consortium, the appointments of Niall Quinn and Roy Keane to their respective roles as chairman and manager, as well as the relatively large number of Irish players in the squad, led some fans to jokingly dub the team "Sund-Ireland".
The holder of the record for the most league appearances is Jimmy Montgomery, having made 527 first team appearances between 1961 and 1976.
The club's top league goal scorer is Charlie Buchan, who scored 209 goals from 1911–1925; Bobby Gurney is the record goalscorer over all competitions with 227 goals between 1926 and 1939.
Dave Halliday holds the record for the most goals scored in a season: 43 in the 1928–29 season in the Football League First Division.
Charlie Hurley is the most capped player for the club, making 36 appearances for the Republic of Ireland.
The club's widest victory margin in the league was in the 9–1 win against Newcastle United in the First Division in 1908.
Their heaviest defeats in the league were 8–0 against Sheffield Wednesday in 1911, West Ham United in 1968 and Watford in 1982.
Sunderland joined the top division in England, The Football League, in the 1890–91 season and were not relegated until 1957–58 (a span of 67 seasons).
Sunderland's record home attendance is 75,118 for a sixth round replay FA Cup match against Derby County on 8 March 1933.
The highest transfer fee received for a Sunderland player is £8 million, from Stoke City for Kenwyne Jones in August 2010, while the most spent by the club on a player was £13 million for Asamoah Gyan from Stade Rennais in August 2010.