We don’t have any nicknames for our little town but we have a few (personal ones) for other Washington towns:
Mount Vernon is ‘Mount Vermin’
Castle Rock is ‘Rassle Cock’
Oak Harbor is ‘Joke Harbor’ or ‘The Joke’
Lots of folks refer to Bellingham as ‘B-ham’ and residents as ‘Hamsters’ and Sedro-Woolley and Port Townsend are locally referred to as ‘Woolley’ and ‘Town’.
If I hear anyone say “New York City” in conversation, I have to respond with, “Get a rope!”
Real New Yorker here, and yep, the City is just the City. Manhattan only needs to be named if I’m talking with a non-native (or long-time resident). My creds: born in the City, lived at various times in various places in Queens, Brooklyn, and NJ. Sorry, other boroughs, you’re not included in “the City.”
I’ve heard Chi-town used rarely. Like meteor strike rarely.
For some reason, our anchorpersons use the term “Chicagoland” a lot, but I’ve never heard it from anyone else besides them and car dealers in local commercials. Maybe it’s a TV thing.
I sometimes hear people say Chicagoland, but rarely. People usually just say “the Chicago area,” or, because they’re apparently trying to signal to me that they shouldn’t be taken seriously, “the Chicagoland area.”
I hear Chicagoland fairly commonly and use it (typically in the phrase “Chicagoland area.”) I never noticed how weird it must sound to non-Chicagoans until I got to college and somebody thought I was talking about an amusement park.
Chicagoland is common enough from media sources and I guess it makes sense when referring to the suburbs and NW Indiana. I never hear anyone use it conversationally though.
The only time I hear Chi-town or Windy City is in advertisements for national companies that are awkwardly trying to endear themselves to the local audience (lookin’ at you with your radio ads, Geico).
I live in Nottingham, and no one ever calls it “Robin Hood Country”, except the local government.
We call it Nottnum, cos syllables are hard.
Maybe not, but some folks still call Indianapolis “Naptown”, although it was more common in the past.
The old-timers I know who call it that are usually jazz cats and I think they consider it a positive nickname from the height of the jazz scene in Indy (maybe 1920 to 1950???). But nowadays, the younger (and not so young, but not too hip) consider it a demeaning nickname that refers to the sleepy quality of the city (Nap. Get it?)
I prefer the old jazz cats positive interpretation of the term and see it as a positive nickname myself.
I grew up in San Antonio, TX. I have never heard any of the local folks refer to it as “San An-tone”. Actually, most of us dislike that phrase. Only foreigners use that phrase. The local DJ’s on the radio don’t even use it. It’s an easy way to find out who’s a local and who’s not.
I do like the use of “Baltimorons” for folks from Baltimore, MD. I’ve used it a lot, much to the dislike of Marylanders. Or, to use the vernacular, “Merr-lann-ders”
When I lived in DC, most people used to simply refer to it as “the city”. Everybody understood the usage.
But the original commercials had New Jersey in there before New York City. They made the right choice in changing it though.
I love how the announcer pronounces “pecanty sauce.” We all pronounce “picante” much better now.
Chocolate City really referred to a specific time, although there is a club on Georgia Avenue called Chocolate City. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-19/local/35262494_1_black-voters-chocolate-city-open-arms
For DC, if you say you’re from Washington, I assume you are probably from a MD, or VA suburb, but if you say you are from the District, it means you are a Washingtonian.
I have heard my town of Omaha, NE referred to as “The River City” and “The Big O”.
I find both nicknames ridiculous, particularly “The Big O”. It just sounds silly.
“The River City” is obnoxious because it ties in with an annual “River City Round-Up” rodeo and western-themed events. Sigh. I’m a city girl at heart.
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and some of us would refer to the city as ‘The A.T.L.’ . ATL is the airport code for Hartsfield/Jackson International Airport.
Nobody ever calls it ‘Hotlanta’ unless it is the middle of a heat wave and we are trying (and failing) to be funny.
We also refer to the region inside the Perimeter (I-285) as ‘I.T.P.’ (Inside The Perimeter).
Most everyone I knew in San Luis Obispo called it SLO. Sometimes as S-L-O, but usually all run together so it sounded like “slow”.