According to legend Armada was created not from a Cybertronian tower but from the deepest bed of the Sea of Mercury, and he swam alone for thousands of years before coming ashore to meet his brothers and their creations. He is considered the inventor of song, storytelling, and star-based navigation. He is considered the primogenitor of the Hermeunos, although it is argued that the core programming of all water-going Cybertronians is derived from Armada's programming. His spawnlings were called the Armada, as is his line of descent.

Armada is believed to have been the first of the Firstforged to die, falling in battle against the demons. According to legend, he died in the company of Maximo, who may or may not have absorbed some of his essence [a myth especially liked by the Legascions, who believed themselves descended from both Armada and Maximo].

According to Decepticon folklore, as the first of the Firstforged to die, Armada was alloted the role of gatekeeper of the Allspark, plucking the newly-dead from the Great Pit. Since he is the patron of storytelling, Decepticons believe Armada can be persuaded to send the dead back to the living world if he is told a good enough story. Because of this, Armada's name is so closely linked with the concept of the threshold between life and death that Decepticons who have survived experiences which should have killed them often taken new names which are variants on Armada, or refer to themselves as members of the Armada. By the time that Unicron named one of his re-creations Armada the name had come to mean something closer to "revenant spirit" or "living ghost" than anything to do with ships.

The name "Armada", meaning "fleet" or "armed ships", is a translation of the meaning of his name in Ancient Cybertronian. In Primaltongue he was called Wchus-Ychus meaning "he of the many water-action people". In Modern Autobot he is called Pasumokaular meaning "the one hundred fighting ships, he has left". Pasumokaular is transliterated into Murion as Wasoukalar. In Modern Decepticon he is called Avuchuranis, meaning "commander of the ocean steel, he was a grand person".

In High Legion he was called Apuyinus-olalseuwado-uwamasa, meaning "the pain-rage, the sorrow, the spear-wall breaching the surface of the ocean in heavy chop". This has several layers of meaning. uwamasa [sorrow] refers to the Legascions' mourning of Armada's death, but as sorrow was one of the emotions closely associated with song and poetry, it also refers to Armada's creation of the literary arts. uwado [pain-rage] refers to an emotion that has no direct translation in English; a mixture of pain and rage that motivates the sufferer to action, both a pain born from rage but also a rage born from pain. This refers to Armada's suffering before his death, the emotions that motivated his songs, the uwado experienced by the Legascions when they thought of his death, and the pain of the Liege curse. The spear-wall breaching the ocean refers to both the fleet of armed warships that was Armada's line of descent, and also the Legascions themselves, and to the rising of Armada himself from the ocean. The reference to the choppy weather refers to the mood of incoming storm, overlapping with the uwado. The combination of the uwado with the spear-wall implies violent revenge; the uwamasu with the choppy sea refers to turbulent grief.