Local city or regional nicknames

[Deleted]

Lots of cities have media nicknames (Big Apple, City of Light....), but what do the locals really say?

An old time Parisian will always call Paris "Paname" (pronounced like the defunct airline).

And a Parisian will use the slang adjective "parigot" instead of parisien/parisienne.

This really mystifies "new" Parisians, but as the years go by and they hear themselves using those terms as well, they realize that they are Parisians at last.

Is there a situation like this in any other big city or region?

[cristina]

I live in the place the media refers to as the " Valley of the Sun," as Phoenix is in a valley and we do have 300 days of sunshine each year.

However, many Phonecians refer to themselves as Desert Rats. And most of San Diego calls us by that name when we descend upon their beaches in July and August.

[bixaorellana]

Here they come!


The town where I live, Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, is almost exclusively referred to as Xoxo.

The original name of the city of Oaxaca was Antequera, after a city in Spain, and it's still referred to that way from time to time. It's also called la verde Antequera, after the green stone of which much of the city is built.

[Deleted]

When I was growing up near New Orleans, it was always called Crescent City on the news or weather ("Crescent City can expect a lot of thunderstorms tomorrow."). I never heard anybody anywhere else in the U.S. use that term, which made me think that visitors watching television might not even understand that they were one and the same place unless they noticed the crescents on all of the municipal icons.

[bixaorellana]

Huh! Never thought about that, but you are right. Actually, they generally say "the Crescent City.

On the tv show Treme they tried to use a bunch of local terms. I only heard "Nola" (from N.O., La.) once. I was happy they didn't over-do it, as people say it, but it's more often a written term.

In Mexico, all towns have long names, but the whole thing is not used. They're generally something tacked on to honor a saint or personage, which means that part of the name is in an indigenous language and part in Spanish, as in the name of my town.

[Deleted]

What I really hate are the generic blah names, such as in Los Angeles. "Another sunny day in the Southland." Southland? Give me a break! How boring is that?

[lagatta]

We have a lot of those names too, bixa. They can be part French and par Indigenous-language or part-French and part English, as in "Notre-Dame-de-Standbridge".

Montréal is a horribly generic name. There are several Montréals in France, not to mention Monterrey and Monterey in Mexico and California. Our city was also known as Ville-Marie, more generic still, and the original Indigenous village was named Hochelaga (as misheard by the French - Ottawa/Outaouais is an example of how English and French misheard an Indigenous name. I know how to say the original name but forgot how to transcribe it).

[joanne28]

Toronto is referred to as Hogtown and Calgary as Cowtown. Not very imaginative, are they?

[bixaorellana]

About the generic names, LaGatta, someone from Oaxaca who was a fan of The Simpsons (the dubbed version is very big here), once asked me if there really was a "Springfield" in the US. Made me laugh!

Re: the nicknames of Toronto and Calgary ~~ I never understood why people would disparagingly refer to a city as a "cowtown". Wouldn't that be a place that was a hub of business?

[joanne28]

Yes, as is Hogtown. I assume it's a reference to something just a little too parochial and rural.

[cigalechanta]

Boston's nickname is Beantown. These days, locals don't use it but it appears in the press al the time.

[bixaorellana]

Is it true that people from San Francisco cringe when they hear their city referred to as "Frisco"?

[Deleted]

Yes, they can't stand it. But most San Franciscans just say they are from "the Bay area." They are not unique, though, because the people of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater in Florida say they are from "the Bay area," too.

[bixaorellana]

That reminded me -- saint name cities are frequently called by their nicknames, as in St. Pete, St. Joe, although I don't think you'd ever hear "St. Lou" or "Bay St. Lou".

[cristina]

Before Phoenix was named Phoenix, it was called Pumpkinville. No kidding. Apparently due to our ability to successfully grow crops of pumpkins. This was well before AZ became a state.

I have a book about our state history that I must dig up, as I recall a number of really peculiar facts (which I shouldn't repeat until I've confirmed my memory).

I don't think there is anyone alive who remembers Pumpkinville, so that name hasn't lingered. Thankfully. And I have not been able to successfully grow a pumpkin since I've lived here.

I always wondered about the Hogtown moniker for Toronto. It is such a rich, beautiful, urban city to me...and hogtown doesn't match what I experience when I visit. At all.

[Deleted]

I saw that apparently Flagstaff is called The Staff, but I'm wondering if that is just another "weatherman" nickname, as in "Another scorcher in the Staff tomorrow."

[bixaorellana]

How come Las Vegas is frequently called Vegas, but Los Angeles is never called Angeles?

[bjd]

Toronto's name of Hogtown came from large pork processing factories in the early 20th century. I haven't lived there for a long time, but when I was growing up it wasn't heard all that much.

[Deleted]

But do the people of Toronto actually use the term among themselves? "I'm a real Hogtown girl." "When I'm in India, I miss the good Hogtown food." I can't imagine that.

[bjd]

I doubt it. As I said, I didn't hear it used much when I was growing up either -- more in the sense of "Toronto used to be called Hogtown, but now (1970s) it's not like that at all."

[joanne28]

My fault for digressing a bit there.

I think other people and places use the Hogtown nickname. People in Toronto don't use it because it's slightly pejorative. They tend to say "We're just like New York". Which it isn't.

However, I do find that Toronto is much more multicultural than any other major city I've visited. When I went to London with my best friend, after a few days she said to me "London's a rather white town, isn't it?" To our eyes, it is.

[Deleted]

Haven't spent much time in Brixton then!

[lola]

A local newspaper columnist started using the extremely annoying "The Lou" for St. Louis, and it's crept in elsewhere. I mean really.

Everyone here calls it St. Louis with an "iss" on the end, except Easterners who like to end it with an "ee". Sometimes I'll say something like "It's a lovely morning in the Gateway City, " (which it happens to be right now) because we were/are supposedly the Gateway to the West. Certainly some people here got rich outfitting wagon trains etc, sending Lewis and Clark on their way, and trading furs in earlier days.

[joanne28]

Jul 2, 2010 13:12:28 GMT kerouac2 said:

Haven't spent much time in Brixton then!

That's just one area. We have our Little Italy & Portugal & Greece & so on but overall in the city there's more of a mix of nationalities. Self-reported non-visible minorities are 47% of the population. This doesn't include aboriginal peoples. So it's quite the mix.

According to Wikipedia, Toronto is the 2nd most multicultural city in the world, after Miami. And in Miami it's mainly Cubans and Latin-Americans.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto#Multicultural_diversity

Hence my friend's remark.

[Deleted]

In South Africa, the residents talk about "Joburg" and "The Cape" but as a visitor, I did not feel authorized to use those terms.

[palesa]

K2, I think visitors and tourists are also entitled

Joburg is also known as Joeys and Durban, Durbs

[cristina]

Jul 2, 2010 5:34:06 GMT kerouac2 said:

I saw that apparently Flagstaff is called The Staff, but I'm wondering if that is just another "weatherman" nickname, as in "Another scorcher in the Staff tomorrow."

I don't believe I have ever heard "The Staff" to describe Flagstaff. Many Phoenicians have summer cabins in and around Flagstaff - whenever anyone from Phoenix is planning to spend the weekend there, they usually say they are heading up to "Flag." Or just the generic "up north." The whole point being that they will be spending the weekend in far more tolerable temperatures than the rest of the Desert Rats. At least at this time of year.

It was already 100F/40C at 8:30 this morning as I drove to work. Making a note to buy a cabin in Flag.

[lola]

I picked "Joburg" up from a show-offy journalist friend of mine who'd spent time there, (not that I'd had many chances to toss it into conversation until recently).

Former residents tend to call my mostly home town, Poplar Bluff, "the Bluff"; as in "Are you going to the Bluff for the reunion?"

[lagatta]

Where is Imec? His town is often known as Winterpeg, also The Peg.

We don't really have a memorable nickname. Journalists and writers call Montréal "la métropole" and Québec City "la vieille capitale", but nobody says that in everyday conversation.

"Cowtown" for Calgary simply refers to Alberta's prominence as a cattle producer, like Texas or the pampas of Argentina. Suppose it could insinuate that Calgarians aren't very polished, but it is not usually used in a derogatory manner.

Kerouac, these days we think of "Les Ch'tis" - the people from the old industrial North of France, near the Belgian border, due to the very popular film "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis".

Another type of nickname is the estate agent kind: Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is an old working-class district in the East End, formerly on the working port. Promoters like to dub its renovated lofts as being located in HoMa (a takeoff on NYC SoHo, I guess, in itself taking off on the London namesake).

[Deleted]

New Orleans became The Big Easy sometime in the 1970's if I recall correctly.also,The City that Care Forgot is another term used but,more infrequently since the Big Easy came into fashion.

"The Lou",for Saint Louis,? Oh,how awful!!! When I lived there it was commonly referred to as "The Gateway City"as you mentioned Lola.

The ones that drive me crazy are all the ones coined after SOHO and TRIBECA in NYC came to be used,DUMBO etc..WTF?? Too confusing.