List of city nicknames in the United Kingdom

This partial list of city nicknames in the United Kingdom compiles the aliases, sobriquets and slogans that cities in the United Kingdom are known by (or have been known by historically), officially and unofficially, to locals, outsiders or their tourism boards or chambers of commerce. City nicknames can help in establishing a civic identity, helping outsiders recognize a community or attracting people to a community because of its nickname; promote civic pride; and build community unity.^[1] Nicknames and slogans that successfully create a new community "ideology or myth"^[2] are also believed to have economic value.^[1] Their economic value is difficult to measure,^[1] but there are anecdotal reports of cities that have achieved substantial economic benefits by "branding" themselves by adopting new slogans.^[2]

Some unofficial nicknames are positive, while others are derisive. The unofficial nicknames listed here have been in use for a long time or have gained wide currency.

A

Granite is one of the principal materials used in the architecture of Aberdeen, to the extent that it has become known as "The Granite City"

• Aberdeen
  • "Energy Capital of Europe" - the "greenwashed" name now being used in the city as it tries to project a "greener" image, not based on oil.^[3]
  • "Furryboots City"^[4] - This is a humorous rendering of the Doric, "far aboots?" ("Whereabouts?"), as in "Far aboots ye frae?" ("Whereabouts are you from?")
  • "The Granite City"^[5][6] - the most well-known, due to the copious use of local grey granite in the city's older buildings.
  • "Oil Capital of Europe"^[3][7] - There are numerous variants on this, such as "Oil Capital of Scotland" etc.
• Accrington
  • "Accy"^[8] - simple contraction of the name.
• Aldershot
  • "Home of the British Army" - a connection which led to its rapid growth from a small village to a Victorian town.^[9][10]

B

Architecturally unredeemed shops in Basingstoke town-centre circa 2009

• Barnsley
  • "Tarn" - Derived from pronunciation of 'town' in the unique local dialect, although the term is often used with an increasing sense of irony given the relatively neutral accents of younger people in the town.^[11]
• Basingstoke
  • "Basingrad"^[12] - reference to a perceived resemblance of the town to the Stalinist-era architecture of similarly-suffixed Soviet cities.
• Belfast
  • "Old Smoke" - reference to the observation that in the Victorian era, while much of Ireland (Dublin excepted) remained rural and agricultural, Belfast became the island's primary industrial city.^[13]
• Birmingham
  • "Brum" - shortened form of "Brummagem", one of many variant spellings of the city's name. The derived term "Brummie" can refer both to the people of the area, and the local dialect and accent.^[14]
  • "City of a Thousand Trades"^[15] - with reference to the city's former industrial might.
  • "Workshop of the world" ^[16] - also a reference to the city's industrial heritage.
  • "Second City" - Used by many traders, politicians, and is the popular name of the derby between the city's two football clubs Aston Villa F.C. and Birmingham City F.C.^[17] See, however, Second city of the United Kingdom.
  • "The Pen Shop of the World" - Historical. In reference to Birmingham's huge pen trade in the 1800s.^[18]
• Bournemouth
  • "Bomo" - a shortened term of the name Bournemouth
  • "Boccy" - a nickname for the suburb of Boscombe, east of the town centre

The Wool Exchange, Bradford, reflecting the importance of the wool trade to the city.

• Bradford
  • "Bradistan" - the suffix -stan refers to the city's large Asian community, particularly from Pakistan. The nickname is used by white and Asian people alike, and came to many people's attention in the film East is East.^[19][20]
  • "Woolopolis" - a reference to the Victorian era woolen industry in the city, in the style of Manchester's "Cottonopolis"^[21]
• Brighton and Hove
  • Brighton
    • "London-by-the-sea"^[22][23][24]
    • "The Queen of Watering Places"^[25]
    • "Skid Row-on-Sea"^[26]
    • "The People's Republic of Brighton and Hove" - referring to one of the South East's few Labour MPs, the only Green MP and a Labour council all representing the area.
  • Hove
    • "Hove actually" - an imagined response distinguishing the area from Brighton.^[27]
• Bristol
  • "Bristle" or "Brizzle" - Bristol natives speak with a rhotic accent. An unusual feature of this dialect, unique to Bristol, is the Bristol L (or terminal L), in which an L sound is appended to words.^[28]

C

Two of the three spires of Coventry: Holy Trinity Church to the left, and the remains of the 14th Century St. Michael's Cathedral to the right.

• Cambridge
  • "City of perspiring dreams" - by contrast with Oxford's nickname, "the city of dreaming spires". Coined by author and screenwriter Frederic Raphael in The Glittering Prizes.^[29][30] "Perspiring Dreams" was later the title of the Cambridge University Students' Union alternative prospectus.^[31]
  • "Silicon Fen" - often applied to Cambridge and the immediately surrounding region, because of the large number of High tech businesses in the area. The name alludes to similarities to Silicon Valley in California, and the city's location close to The Fens. In contrast to Scotland's Silicon Glen which relates to manufacturing.^[32][33]
• Cardiff
  • "City of Arcades"^[34][35][36] - the city has the highest concentration of Victorian, Edwardian and contemporary indoor shopping arcades in any British city - see List of shopping arcades in Cardiff.^[37]

• Castleford
  • "Cas Vegas" - an ironic allusion to wealth; see neighbouring Pontefract's entry.

• Coventry
  • "Britains Detroit" - arising from its one-time status as the centre of UK car manufacturing; an appellation dating back to at least 1916.^{[38][39][40][41]}
  • "City of Peace and Reconciliation" - branding adopted from 2008 onwards, as part of the City of Sanctuary movement.^[42][43]
  • "City of three spires", referring to the cathedral spire; Holy Trinity Church; and Christ Church's spire.^[44][45]
  • "Motor City" - as with "Britain's Detroit", an allusion to the city's motorcar industry.^[38][39][46]

D

Part of the never breached Walls of Derry, giving rise to the name "Maiden City"

• Derby
  • "Derbados"^[47] - portemanteau of Derby and Barbados
• Derry
  • "The Maiden City"^[48] - the name allegedly attaches since the city's walls were never breached^[49]
  • "Stroke City" - referring to a normal form of presenting the two names of the city - Derry/Londonderry^[50]
• Doncaster
  • "Donny"^[51][52] - shortened version of Doncaster.
• Dundee
  • "City of Discovery"^[53] - the name referring to the RSS Discovery - the sailing ship used by Robert Falcon Scott in his attempt to reach the South Pole - which was constructed in the city, and returned there in 1986.^[54]

E

The National Gallery of Scotland, an 1859 neo-classical construction

• Edinburgh
  • "Athens of the North" - a reference to the many new public buildings of the Greek neo-classical style built in the eighteenth century.^[55]
  • "Auld Reekie"^[56] - (Scots for Old Smoky), because when buildings were heated by coal and wood fires, chimneys would spew thick columns of smoke into the air.
• Ely
  • "The Ship of The Fens" - referring to the size of the city's Ely Cathedral, and that due to the area's low-lying topography, it can be seen from miles around.

G

• Glasgow
  • "Dear Green Place"^[57] - from one interpretation of the Scottish Gaelic name Glaschu
  • "Red Clydeside" - based on a post World War 1 reputation as a centre of left-wing activity^[58]
  • "Second City of the Empire" - a reference to the Victorian era industrial past of the city.^[59]
  • "Shipbuilding capital of the world"^[60] - another reference to the Victorian period in which the Clydeside shipyards were one of the foremost builders in the world.

H

• Huddersfield
  • "Hudds" - shortened version of Huddersfield.^[61]

I

• Inverness
  • "Capital of the Highlands"^[62]
  • "Inversnecky"^[62]

K

• Kingston upon Hull
  • "Hull" - A very commonly used shortening of the full name.^[63]
  • "Hull on Earth" - A pun on the phrase "Hell on Earth".^[64]
• Kettering
  • "K-Town" - Commonly used shortening of the full name by youth.
• Knaresborough
  • "Crag Rat Town" - an allusion to the fact that Knaresborough is largely built on a crag above a gorge through which the River Nidd runs.
  • "Rough Knob Arse" - an amusing anagram that has been latterly adopted as a nickname.

L

The construction of inner-city motorways in Leeds such as the Inner Ring Road (pictured) and the M621 in the 1970s led to its nickname motorway city of the 1970s

• Leeds
  • "Capital of the North"^[65][66][67]
  • "Knightsbridge of the North"^[68]
  • "Motorway City of the 70s"^[69]
• Lichfield
  • "The Three Sticks" - Originally a Citizen Band [CB] Radio reference to the three spires of Lichfield Cathedral.
• Liverpool
  • "The Capital of Culture 2008"
  • "The World Capital City of Pop"
  • "The Second City of the British Empire"^[70]
  • "The Centre of the Creative Universe"
  • "The Pool of Life" - credited to Carl Jung, who said "Liverpool is the pool of life"^[71]
  • "The Self-Pity City"
  • "Capital of North Wales"
  • "The Pool"

London's smogs inspired its nickname "The Smoke", as well as this work by Claude Monet.

• City of London
  • "The City"^[72]
  • "The Square Mile" - a reference to the area of the City.^[72] Both these terms are also used as metonyms for the UK's financial services industry, traditionally concentrated in the City of London.
• London
  • "The Great Wen" - a disparaging nickname for London. The term was coined in the 1820s by William Cobbett, the radical pamphleteer and champion of rural England. Cobbett saw the rapidly growing city as a pathological swelling on the face of the nation.^[73]
  • "Reykjavík on Thames" - a nickname coined by economists concerned that the UK had the same banking characteristics as Iceland, after the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis.^[74]
  • "The Smoke" / "The Big Smoke" - air pollution in London regularly gave rise to pea soup fogs, most notably the Great Smog of 1952, and a nickname that persists to this day.^[75][76]

M

Manchester earned the nickname "Cottonopolis" in the 19th century due to its large number of cotton mills, as shown in this 1857 painting Manchester from Kersal Moor.

• Manchester
  • "Cottonopolis" - originated in the 19th century, in reference to the predominance of the cotton industry there.^[77]
  • "Granadaland" - coined from the region's commercial TV operator, Granada Television, which is based in the city at Granada Studios, it was also used as a moniker for Manchester itself, especially in the media world.^[78]
  • "Gunchester" - a name attached to the city by media in the 1990s because of the high incidence of gun crime in south Manchester.^[79][80]
  • "Madchester"^[81] - the name arising from a musical scene in the city in the late 1980s and early 1990s; and which has been attributed to Shaun Ryder, of the Happy Mondays^[82]
  • "Manchesterford" - A portmanteau of Manchester and Salford, began as a fictional setting for Victoria Wood's 1980s series of sketches on BBC TV, Acorn Antiques,^[83] but gained colloquial popularity, especially on the gay scene and was immortalized in iron and song lyrics during a 2005 staging of a stage musical version of the TV sketches.^[84]
  • "Rainy City" - Manchester is often perceived to have rainy weather.^[85]
  • "Manny" - Shortened version of Manchester.
  • "Warehouse city" - also emerged as a nickname in the 19th century thanks to the large number of warehouses constructed (1,819 by 1815), particularly concentrated in a square mile around the city centre. Many of these were noted for their scale and style.^[86]
• Middlesbrough
  • "Boro" - A shortening of "borough", originally used to refer just to Middlesbrough F.C.^[87]
  • "Ironopolis" - From the city's former role in the iron industry.^[88]

N

• Newcastle upon Tyne
  • "The Toon" - Geordie dialect meaning the Town (i.e. Newcastle) and hence the name Toon Army for supporters of the local football club.^[89]
• Nottingham
  • "Queen of the Midlands"^[90]

O

An aerial view of Oxford city centre, showing some of the spires that give the city its nickname.

• Oxford
  • "The City of Dreaming Spires" - a term coined by poet Matthew Arnold in reference to the harmonious architecture of Oxford's university buildings.^[91]

P

• Perth
  • "The Fair City" - in reference to Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Fair Maid of Perth"^[62]
• Pontefract
  • "Ponte" - shortened version of Pontefract.
  • "Ponte Carlo"^[12] - possibly alluding to an alleged architectural similarity with Monte Carlo
• Portsmouth
  • "Pompey" - thought to have derived from shipping entering Portsmouth harbour making an entry in their logs as Pom. P. in reference to Portsmouth Point. Navigational charts also use this abbreviation. Other derivations of the name exist.^[92]
• Preston
  • "Proud Preston" - this nickname was said by Edmund Calamy to have been common in 1709,^[93] and it remains in use to this day.^[94] A common misconception is that the "PP" on the city's coat of arms stands for "Proud Preston", though the city council states that it actually stands for "Princeps Pacis" (Prince of Peace).^[95]
  • "P-Town" (often shortened to "P") - a nickname increasing in popularity during the early 2010s due to its evident abbreviation, and is also used to suggest monetary gain, usually ironically.
• Plymouth
  • "Ocean City" - Rebranded by the government as of 2013.^[96]
  • "Spirit of Discovery" - a local council backed tag for the city, which relates to the Pilgrim Fathers, who departed from Plymouth for America in the 17th century.^[97]
  • "Guzz" - Naval term, from a south Asian word for a measurement (yard - dockyard - homeport - Devonport - Plymouth).^[98]

S

Tower blocks in Salford

• Salford
  • "Dirty Old Town" - a song written by Ewan MacColl about the city, and made popular by The Pogues.^[99]
  • "Costa Del Salford" - Playing on Costa Del Sol a portion of the southern coast of Spain, the term is ironic as of the poor climate of the city unlike the sunny coast of Spain.
• Saint Davids
  • The City of Saints - Due to its Whitesands Bay Supposedly being the birthplace of Welsh patron Saint David and his mother Saint Non.
  • Smallville - On account of the fact its the UKs smallest City.
• Scunthorpe
  • "Scunny" - a shortened version of Scunthorpe
• Sheffield
  • "Steel City" - a reference to the dominant industry in Sheffield in the nineteenth and twentieth century.^[100]
  • "People's Republic of South Yorkshire" (or Socialist Republic of...)^[101] - a reference to the left wing politics of the city during the 1980s.^[102]
  • "England's largest village" - a term coined locally to reflect indigenous pride in the perceived inherent friendliness of the City's inhabitants and its low crime rates.^[103]
• Southampton
  • "Soton", from the shortening of Southampton to So'ton on road signage
• Stoke-on-Trent
  • "The Five Towns" or "The Six Towns" - In the novels of Arnold Bennett the area that was to become the city is referred to as "the Five Towns"; Bennett felt that the name was more euphonious than "the Six Towns" so Fenton was left out .^[104]
  • "The Potteries" - after the city's former main industry.^[105]
• Sunderland
  • "Sunlun", from the local pronunciation of the town's name.
• Swansea
  • "Copperopolis" - due to the city's past as a centre of the copper industry.^[106][107]

W

• Wakefield
  • "The Merry City"- reputation for high alcohol-consumption dates from the 19th century.^[108]
  • "Wakey" - shortened version of Wakefield.
• Winchester
  • "The City of Kings and Priests" - reputation as the historic capital founded by King Alfred the Great, as well as being an important religious foundation,[^[109]
  • "Wenta" - a shortened version of the city's original name back when first established,[^[110][Caerwenta]]
• Wolverhampton
  • "Wolves" - also used for the city's football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers
• Worcester
  • "The Faithful City" - reference to the English Civil war.^[111]

Y

The Berrick Saul building at the University of York

• York
  • "Chocolate City", due to the former chocolate factories in the city

See also

• City status in the United Kingdom
• List of football club nicknames in the United Kingdom
• List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names#Cities
• Second city of the United Kingdom
• Lists of nicknames – nickname list articles on Wikipedia

References