This list is by no means exhaustive but for starters here are the most common awards people go after (with a few others added) and will help sort out the acronyms:
DXCC – DX Century Club. Mixed, by Band and by Mode (CW, Phone, Digital), Generally Awarded 160-6m, Need 100 entities to Apply. (ARRL award) This is perhaps the most popular award and results in an eventual “Honor Roll” once you pass a threshold and “#1 Honor Roll” once you worked them all. You can find more information on the LOTW website.
DXCC Challenge – DX contacts by band combinations, need 1000 to apply. (ARRL) This is almost, if you will, an add-on to the DXCC award. For example if you have worked 120 countries on 5 bands, you got 600 “points”. Once you hit 1000, you get your plaque with the first 1000 endorsement. All other endorsements are in increments of 500. 3000 is the “ultimate” achievement but if you do the math, being hit by lightning is more likely for most of us then getting to 3000.
VUCC – VHF UHF Century Club. Mixed, by Band and by Mode (CW, Phone, Digital), Awarded 6m and above. The number required varies by band, higher is generally less. (ARRL)
WAS – Worked All States, Mixed, by Band and by Mode (CW, Phone, Digital). Requires 50 states (includes KL7 Alaska and KH6 Hawaii which also count for DX), endorsements all require all states for all categories. (ARRL)
CQ WPX – Prefix awards, endorsements for Bands and Modes and even continents. The number required varies by Band, Mode, Continent. (CQ)
IOTA – Island on the Air, Requires 100 for the initial award, can be endorsed. There are other awards offered by the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) and those can be found here: https://rsgb.org/main/operating/amateur-radio-awards/
POTA – Parks on the Air® (POTA) started in early 2017 when the ARRL’s National Parks on the Air special event ended. A group of volunteers wanted to continue the fun beyond the one-year event, and thus, POTA was born. https://docs.pota.app/
WAZ – Worked all Zones, this can also be endorsed for each HF band (Except for 60m as of January 2021) and 160m, which is technically MF. (CQ)
WAC – Worked all Continents (IARU) and can be endorsed for each band.
USA-CA Awards – This is the worked all counties awards. Starts at 500 and max of 3077 for ALL USA counties. You can find more info here: https://cq-amateur-radio.com/cq_awards/cq_usa_ca_awards/cq_usa_ca_awards.html (CQ)
Other ARRL Awards – A-1 Operator Club,Triple Play, Fred Fish Memorial Award, Morse Code Proficiency, Rag Chewers’ Club
The Canadian counterpart to the ARRL, Radio Armatures of/du Canada (RAC) also offers a few awards which can be found here: https://www.rac.ca/operating/rac-operating-awards/
Canadaward – For working all provinces, much like WAS for for the US by ARRL, this also has a 5 Band version available. You can also get a very nice looking 5 Band Plaque.
Trans Canada Award – 55 contacts for the 10 call areas as well as a combination of other areas. See website for more details as some can be combined and some areas only count for one. A little complex but makes sense if you read up on it carefully.
Province Capitals Award – contact with 10 provincial capitals – St. John’s, Newfoundland; Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Fredericton, New Brunswick; Quebec, Quebec; Toronto, Ontario; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Regina, Saskatchewan; Edmonton, Alberta; and Victoria, British Columbia and these can be mixed mode, any band so should be fairly easy to obtain.
Worked all RAC – for communications with all RAC official stations.
St. Lawrence Seaway Award – contacts along the St. Lawrence Seaway
There are many Japanese awards out there offered by JARL but here are some Japanese awards worth mentioning:
AJD – For having worked all 10 call areas. Pretty easy to get, especially from the west coast
AJA – This is perhaps the hardest if you want to keep going with it, is an award for “guns” or cities and “ku” areas. This can be something you can work for endorsements on for decades!
WAJA – For working all 47 Japanese prefectures. There is also an SWL version called HAJA for those who do not claim 2 way contact.
Sadly, the application process for these as of January 2021 is still manual labor, involves lengthy spreadsheets and such, so many do not go for them. Hopefully in the future this will go electronic on it’s own or via something like eQSL or LOTW perhaps.
JARL also offers JCC, JCG and even awards for D-Star contacts. If you obtain 10 or more of their awards, you can also apply for the JARL Award Master (JAM) award.
You can get info on all the JARL awards here: https://www.jarl.org/English/4_Library/A-4-2_Awards/Award_Main.htm