My town, Saskatoon, has a few nicknames: Toon Town, Bridge City/the City of Bridges, and Hub City.
Manhattan, KS is known as The Little Apple. Interesting founding storys too. Pioneers were traveling up the river, got stuck on a sand bar and figured here was as good as anywhere and stayed.
Anybody who calls it ‘Hotlanta’ ain’t from around here. I cringe every time I hear it. Could we please have a nickname that doesn’t sound like it was made up by some redneck whooping it up in a Stewart Avenue stripclub?
Tel Aviv is known as the “City Without a Pause”.
My hometown of Haifa is called Red Haifa"(due to its socialist past); also, the Pause Without a City, for sadly obvious reasons.
Beersheba is the Capital of the Negev.
Petach Tikva is The Mother of Colonies.
And of course, there’s the Holy City. I’ll let you figure out which one it is
Rockwood, Ontario - The Turnip Capital of the World
Don’t forget ‘The City that Bleeds’, which is what I’ve heard most often.
Calgary, Alberta is called Cowtown
Regina, Saskatchewan is also called Queen City
Yellowknife, NWT: YK or YZF
We use to call Baltimore “The City that Reads (very slowly)”
Punxatawney PA - “Home of the Groundhog.” Or just shortened to Punxy.
Mill towns in New England often took nicknames from their principal industries in the first half of the 20th century:
Meriden, CT - Silver City (silverware manufacturers)
Manchester, CT - Silk City (textile mills)
Westfield, MA - Whip City (buggy whips)
Edinburgh - Auld Reekie, Athens of the North
Aberdeen - The Granite City
a wee pome:
San Francisco, my favorite city
Where the women are strong and the men are pretty…
Orlando: the City of Magic (don’t ask) or O-Town (don’t say it)
Canberra’s actually not a bad town, to be honest. I could almost see myself living there. It is the butt of jokes and insults for several reasons:
- It’s the capital, so is the home of politicians and government employees (it get’s called Can’tberra quite a bit).
- It’s a planned city, a bit like Brasilia, and there are frequent claims it is soulless (this is true to a large extent - try finding a traditional pub in the place!).
- It was founded in it’s eventual location due to intercity rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. The upshot of this is that it’s in the middle of nowhere. There were sheep farms there before. Driving to Canberra is weird because you’re driving through miles of nothing, and next thing there’s a nation’s capital city sitting there plonked in the dirt.
Cork City - The Real Capital
Limerick City - Stab Town
Baltimore also goes by Mobtown and The Cathedral City. Chillicothe calls itself Ohio’s First Capital. Woo hoo.
Portland, OR: Stumptown (who says “city of roses” other then the chamber of commerce?). I haven’t heard Porntown but it’s good. Pornland?
Oakland- Oaktown. Berkeley: Berzerkeley.
Vancouver BC: Hongcouver, Van.
I think there’s a difference between nicknames than humans use and motto-nicknames that chambers of commerce concoct. I don’t think King County came up with “The aroma of Tacoma,” for example.
Hotlanta isn’t exactly a new term: the Hotlanta River Expo, considered by many to be the grandfather of all circuit parties was started in 78 (although it might have origianally been called something else: I know it was using the term “Hotlanta” as part of it’s name by the late eighties at least) I never went to the River expo (and it is now defunct) but I always associated it with my Gay community (I’m not saying g/l/b/t because it was mostly gay men) Now, though I heare it used all over the place. Anyone know the actual origin? My google-fu is apparently not up to the task.
Battle Mountain, NV - Armpit of America. They even have an annual Armpit Festival.
(I drive through Battle Mt. regularly. The name certainly fits.)
FWIW: It’s AKA ‘Basecamp to America’s Outback’, but hardly anyone uses that nickname.
A lot of residents call Wasington DC “the District”.
Madison is known as “Mad Town” or “Mad City”
Douglas Coupland makes the point that although there is North Van and West Van, there is no Van. “It’s like calling Portland Port,” he says.
Also Terminal City, Rain City, and The Big Smoke (which dates from the 1880s, not the 1960s).
Lately the name Vansterdam has been catching on.
Cincinnati has also more recently taken on the nick of “the 'Nati”, and Detroit is Motown of course.