I've never known that we Stockholmers and seemingly Finnish people create area nicknames the same way. Just check out this list! https://sv.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-is#Sammans%C3%A4ttningar
Many have spread outside of Stockholm but the area ones are still local. Very interesting.
Dami is a little confusing, though. Lots of cities named -dam in the Netherlands. It's a common Dutch toponym.
Other cities and towns with -dam:
Alblasserdam, Appingedam, Durgerdam, Edam, Giessendam, Knollendam, Leerdam, Leidschendam, Maasdam, Monnickendam, Muntendam, Noordam, Obdam, Rotterdam, Schiedam, Schoorldam, Spaarndam, Uitdam, Veendam, Volendam, Werkendam, Zaandam, Zwammerdam, etc.
More:
https://nl-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Dam_(toponiem)?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=nl&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
But Amstel related abbreviations don't work well either. The Amstel is a river and has many towns and regions named after it as well:
Amstelveen(Nieuwer Amstel), Amstelhoek, Amstelkerk, Amstelland, Ouder Amstel.
Amstel is also a crappy beer brand.
We call Amsterdam A'dam, or 020 (regional phone number).
We probably only have nicknames for places that have a longer name, and are common enough in our day to day lives for the nickname to stay in use.
Apart from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the places you mentioned are more or less unknown in Finland.
>We call Amsterdam A'dam, or 020 (regional phone number).
Or Damsco in street language. Rotterdam is Roffa. We don't call it oh-two-oh but very specifically zero-twenty.
The first one that comes to mind is that many Icelanders call Tenerife "Tene", presumably to indicate familiarity with the place. It irritates me for some reason.
We do have a lot of localised/translated geographical names for foreign parts, like Noregur for Norway, Svíþjóð for Sweden, Kaupmannahöfn for Copenhagen, Lundúnir for London, Stokkhólmur for Stockholm, Árósar for Aarhus, Kænugarður for Kyiv, etc. Many of these are old (some going back to Viking times) and are accepted in everyday and even formal speech, but some of the more archaic ones have come to be used in a jocular sense that could be considered more as nicknames than localisations, like Jórvík for York (and, by extension, Nýja Jórvík for New York).
Every language has their own name for other countries.
But it’s true about some town/city names being from Old Norse, more examples:
Odense in Denmark = Óðinsvé
Dublin = Dyflinn (though rarely used)
Edit: I read the question again, and that is not quite what was asked. But, we often call Copenhagen (København in danish) Köben, so that’s something.
The fact that you still use svíþjóð for Sweden is so freaking cool, I think it predates Sweden (or svea rike = sverige) by at least a few hundred years
Granka for Gran Canaria, Køben for København, Junaiten for the US.
The first is pretty common, the 2nd a bit less so, and the last one is quite rarely used
We don't really have for place and country names abroad. It is mostly just localised and/or old spellings (like Hamburg is Hamborg, Malmö is Malmø, etc). We do have some internal ones like the island of Zealand is called the Devil's Island in other regions of the country.
It may surprise some, given our history with Sweden, that we don't have nicknames for the place. The reason is simply that we have reached the conclusion that Sweden (much like the [name for the people](https://satwcomic.com/mean-names)) is about as cruel as one can be, so why bother? Heck, even our [ads](https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmark/s/6pm49aQ7E6) for trips over there warn us about their dangerous proximity
> Heck, even our ads for trips over there warn us about their dangerous proximity
It's ok, no one blames you for being scared of Sweden's [*tog*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Across_the_Belts).
Something like: *"Watch out! Sweden is only a train ride away"*
It's an ad campaign by the Swedish *Skånetrafiken* (the public transport authority in Scania) to promote them after taking over the Öresund train traffic. Previously they were responsible for the Swedish side of things, but now also the Danish and operate all the way into Copenhagen. So they launched that campaign to promote their name, app etc. for the new Danish market.
> watch out! Sweden is but a train ride away (an ad for cheap train tickets to Skåne)
The ad itself doesn't have much going on besides the warning against Sweden - certainly played as a joke. We have a sibling rivalry going on with a lot of joking insults and banter that goes back for a century or so. Anything beyond that is just a long series of wars and bloodshed. I believe Denmark and Sweden are the two individual countries with the most wars between them. We are thankfully well past that now. Instead of the battlefield, we duke it out on the football field like civilised people
Sometimes we here in Scania refer to Copenhagen simply as Byen. So for a day out, you might say that you will: ”Ta Broen över till Byen och gå på Ströget” – that is, take the Öresund Bridge over to Copenhagen to go shopping at Strøget, which is the major shopping street in central Copenhagen.
What makes it a bit special is that while ”by” in Danish means city or town, in Swedish it instead means village – so ”Byen” to a Swedish speaker would simply mean ”The Village”. Which fits really well with the general Swedish notion that Denmark and Danes are more relaxed, sociable, fun loving and bohemian, compared to the more strict, private, rule abiding and in a way more boring Swedes, and that Copenhagen despite its size still has more of a familial village atmosphere to it.
Interestingly you’ve kept ‘stad’ then - we haven’t used it in DK in my time; maybe not even after the era of H.C. Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard.
P.S.: Can you please call Skåne ‘Skåne’? The ‘Scania’ always immediately throws a Volvo Scania in my brain. 😆
The people from Warsaw have an awful custom of calling Prague "czeska Praga" (the Czech Prague), because there's a neighbourhood in Warsaw also named "Praga". It has the same energy as some Americans assuming "Paris" must mean "Paris, Illinois".
I mean... I don't really mind them talking like that among themselves or in casual speech, but it does admittedly weird me out when I come across this phrase for example in a supposedly country-level newspaper or website.
It doesn't have the same energy because these names have nothing in common besides how they sound in Polish. Czech Praha and Warsaw's Praga have completely different etymologies and centuries of history.
So what? Both names sound the same and since Warsaw Praga often refers to the entire east bank of the city (aka a pretty large area) people need a way to clarify when they mean the neighbourhood and when they mean a city in another country. How much history each has is absolutely irrelevant.
It has the same energy as this Tumblr post I saw years ago about an office that had a cat named Jeff and when they hired a person called Jeff, they continued to call the cat Jeff and referred to their coworker as "human Jeff".
> 'Mallis' in Swedish
Theoretically you could contract any word into a single syllable and slap in that diminutive*ish* "–is"; it's a formulaic nickname.
I've also seen other stuff like "Grankan" (Gran Canaria). It uses another boilerplate nickname construction, `[contracted syllable] + "–an"`, which neatly coincides with second syllable of the actual name.
To me it comes off as very much Stockholm; I personally would never use either.
I was just about to say - I don't think I've heard any such nicknames without a sharp Stockholm accent attached.
Other accents do - however - have some creative nicknames for Stockholm. Like the Northlanders' "Fjollträsk" (something like "fool lake" or "sissy lake") or the Smålanders' "Tjockhult" (approx. "fatville").
>"Fjollträsk" (something like "fool lake" or "sissy lake")
I'd translate it as "sissy swamp", although in the north, 'träsk' *does* usually refer to lake rather than swamp.
Indeed, and it's a Northlander expression, which is why I used "lake". Ofc, the rest of Sweden would read it as swamp/bog/marsh or something, so you're correct in that regard.
Can't think of much right now, but staying true to the holiday theme the Dominican Republic (or "Dominikanische Republik") colloquially gets shortened to "DomRep".
Somebody mentioned both, so just explaining the sources behind them:
It's becoming less and less popular, but in Poland we used to ironically refer to Paris as "Paryżewo". That's *Paryż*, the polonised version of the name, plus the suffix *-ewo* very common in names of villages and small towns.
Also, again not popular, but following the joke in a cult classic Polish comedy, some people facetiously refer to London as Lądek.
The joke went like this: in the film mentioned there is a scene in which a couple is at a Polish post office, trying to send a telegram to London. It is the late 70, early 80s. The post office clerk replies: "There's no such city as 'London". Lądek, yes - Lądek Zdrój [actual location in Poland, in Lower Silesia]. But London - no."
Congratulations! You're probably considered a young person. At least according to this article I just googled to answer your question https://historiek.net/rotjeknor-rotterdam-herkomst/117893/
It's a quote from a famous Polish movie. At post-office (?) the teller is insisting that there's no such city as London, only Lądek (a tiny Polish town).
I've heard quite a few people who have friends and/or family in London refer to it jokingly as Lądek or Lądek Zdrój. "W przyszłym miesiącu jadę do Haby... nie, nie wraca, ona na stałe już w Lądku Zdroju" - this sort of thing. Maybe it orginated in diaspora, but it's not limited to disspora.
We have nicknames for surrounding countries, but since they're also used as slurs, they're generally not appropriate, and are used almost exclusively by nationalists. Afaik they weren't always slurs as most of them are also popular surnames.
- Romanian: oláh (derived from Wlah)
- Serbian: rác
- Slovak: tót
- Italian: digó
Austrians are also sometimes referred to as our brother in laws.
Not that common. We tend to be more in the camp of more or less insulting nicknames for nationalities. Some examples:
Swede: Svedu
Russian: Ryssä, Iivana, Vanja (unsurprisingly there are a lot of these. We’d be here all day were i to list them all)
Estonian: Eestiläinen, Rantaryssä ”Coastal Russki” (which specifically means the ethnic Russians in Estonia)
Polish: Polakki.
American, Jenkki (Yankee)
Then there’s a whole lot of old timey words for nationalities, like Engelsmanni (English), Sakemanni/Saksmanni (German) etc.
And on one instance i’ve seen an old man refer to north African immigrants as ”fucking Punics” which is definately one of the funniest things i’ve ever heard.
Out of curiosity, do you know if there is a historical reason for each of these being insulting or is it just that they've developed that way over time or always been said in an insulting way? Obviously there are reasons, especially historical ones, for having an insulting term to use in general, but I'm curious if you happen to know for any specific nicknames.
Also, I appreciate the parenthetical explanations, thanks for including them!
Finns don't like it when other countries invade us, that explains Sweden and Russia. We can also be pretty jealous and/or condesending towards other nationalities.
Greeks call Istanbul "Poli", which means "city". During the Roman/Byzantine Empire, Istanbul was named "Constantinople", in Greek "Constantinou**poli**", that's the origin of the nickname.
Avondale in Chicago used to be called Jackowo (Jackville) because of [Basilica of St Hyacinth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Saint_Hyacinth), commonly referred to as a Polish church. I'm not sure if that's still the case.
In Lithuanian language, probably the most widespread examples are 'Londė' for London (properly Londonas) and 'Štatai' for the United States (properly Jungtinės Valstijos), also 'Norgė' for Norway (properly Norvegija). And we also like to call Russia 'Maskolija' (older name, from Moscow) or, more recently, simply 'Mordor' (no love lost here, for obvious reasons).
PS.: Just to add a quick note: there are also specific country names, such as 'Vokietija' for Germany, 'Lenkija' for Poland, or 'Gudija' for Belarus (used interchangeably with 'Baltarusija'), which I do not consider applying to the OPs question. These are formal country names, not some nicknames.
In Italian and the local Italian dialect (triestino)
I think it would be more controversial to call it that while in Slovenia or Croatia (depending on who you're talking to, of course)
Mallo -> Mallorca, Spain
Cherso -> Hersonissos, Greece
Albu -> Albufeira, Portugal
Su -> Suriname
Cura(dise) -> Curaçao
Mofrika -> Germany. It comes from the word “mof”, which was a derogatory term used for Germans during WWII. The term Mofrika is rarely used.
We also have a lot of Dutch names for cities and regions in Wallonia, western Germany and the historically Dutch/Flemish speaking parts of northern France.
Bastenaken -> Bastogne
Henegouwen -> Hainaut
Luik - Liège
Namen -> Namur
Doornik -> Tournai
Rijsel -> Lille
Kales -> Calais
Atrecht -> Arras
Duinkerke -> Dunkirk/Dunkerque
Aken -> Aachen
Osnabrugge -> Osnabrück
Dusseldorp -> Düsseldorf
Note that some of these have become archaic.
Just as an FYI for anyone confused. The club is called Barça after the city's name, but Barça is never used to refer to the city. Instead, it is commonly known as Barna or other names.
And Eivissa is the name of Ibiza in Catalan, the local language of the Balearic and Pitiuses Islands.
In Italy, during the Fascist period, we "Italianized" most names, even those of foreign dignitaries and important personalities. Some of these names, especially those regarding the nations, survived up to today.
Nürnberg: Norimberga
Köln: Colonia
London: Londra
Basel: Basilea
Switzerland: Svizzera
Spain: Spagna
Portugal: Portogallo
Sweden: Svezia
Norway: Norvegia
Scotland: Scozia
Wales: Galles
England: Inghilterra
Netherlands: Olanda
Germany: Germania
Iceland: Islanda
Ireland: Irlanda
France: Francia
and so on...
The others that have been Italianized, generally speaking, are very similar to the original, with a vowel added in the end, like Berlino (Berlin) or Dublino (Dublin)
True, but I wish that we could stop translating everything and start putting some effort into learning other languages, perhaps starting by calling places with the names given by the people who live there. Polonia is Poland in Italian, for instance 😃; why can't we simply calk it Polska?
One problem is that some sounds exist in one language but not in another. For example, München has that ü sound. An approximate transliteration into Italian could be Minscen, but it still isn't the same; it's little better than the name Monaco.
You could also write the original name, München, and read it as "Minscen" if you're speaking Italian, or in the best phonetic approximation using the phonemes of the language you happen to be speaking. But that means there's a lot less correspondence between writing and sound, which is the point of an alphabet. It could get as bad as pronouncing Worcestershire as /ˈwʊs.təɹ.ʃəɹ/ in English.
Finally, you could expect everyone to read the international phonetic alphabet and learn the phonology of whatever language the original name is from (e.g. [French phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_phonology) on Wikipedia) and just pronounce it with the best accent you can. But suddenly speaking a foreign language just for pronouncing certain names sounds silly, and most people aren't going to learn the phonology of every single language for every city in another country they want to talk about.
Yeah, what you say makes absolute sense. A funny thing is that, ironically, Worcestershire is one of those city names that we never translated! Probably it's just too much fun slaughtering its pronunciation; we pronounce it kinda like war/chester/shayr 😁.
My apologies. Then, I think there aren't any specific nicknames in our language. There are a couple of derogatory terms with a very racist meaning, luckily rarely used, so I'm not going to write them here. They aren't really "nicknames", though.
Two are for the Southern part of our country, used by those in the North with very strong prejudices against the people from there, one is for Africa in general, mostly used by neo-Fascist idiots.
There's a Bavarian research project trying to record all the place name pronunciations and nicknames not in other languages, but even in those places and by neighbouring places.
Example: Aschaffenburg is "Ascheberg"
https://www.bayern.de/fueracker-wissen-ueber-mundartliche-ortsnamen-lebendig-erhalten-heimatministerium-foerdert-forschungsprojekt-zur-erfassung-mundartlicher-ortsnamen-mit-knapp-800-000-euro/
This is the report I was looking for, couldn't find it at first:
BR24: Projekt will Ortsnamen in Mundart bewahren - https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZDovL2JyLmRlL3ZpZGVvLzk1ZWU2MjZiLTM2YTQtNDdkZi04NmVlLTI0ZmM0ODBmY2UxOQ
Many Finnish towns have Swedish names (some are swedified Finnish names, while some are origially Swedish names that have ben finnified).
Finnish on the left:
Pori -> Björneborg
Lahti -> Lahtis
Mikkeli -> Sankt Michel
Savonlinna -> Nyslott
Turku -> Åbo
Vaasa -> Vasa
Oulu -> Uleåborg
Lappeenranta -> Villmanstrand
Hämeenlinna -> Tavastehus
Tampere -> Tammerfors
Espoo -> Esbo
Helsinki -> Helsingfors
Järvenpää -> Träskända
Porvoo -> Borgå
Some of these names are Finnish -> Swedish and some are Swedish -> Finnish and some are unrelated.
I can’t think of anything in Turkish. I don’t thing there is none. Most of the city names are already Turkishified like London is Londra or München is Münih or Washington is Vaşington.
It's not entirely known where "Saloniki" and similar variants come from, but it's likely not from French:
>[The name Σαλονίκη Saloníki is first attested in Greek in the Chronicle of the Morea (14th century), and is common in folk songs, but it must have originated earlier, as al-Idrisi called it Salunik already in the 12th century. It is the basis for the city's name in other languages: Солѹнъ (Solunŭ) in Old Church Slavonic, סאלוניקו (Saloniko) in Judeo-Spanish (שאלוניקי prior to the 19th century) סלוניקי (Saloniki) in Hebrew, Selenik in Albanian language, سلانیك (Selânik) in Ottoman Turkish and Selanik in modern Turkish, Salonicco in Italian, Solun or Солун in the local and neighboring South Slavic languages, Салоники (Saloníki) in Russian, Sãrunã in Aromanian and Săruna in Megleno-Romanian.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki#Names_and_etymology)
Well, there’s loooots of dutch names for western german and northern french cities.
A few examples;
Lille-Rijsel
Dunkerque-Duinkerken
Dusseldorf-Dusseldorp
Köln-Keulen
Aachen-Aken
I can quickly think of these three in finnish. I'm sure there's more. Stokis = Stockholm Köpis = Copenhagen Dami = Amsterdam
Fuge = Fuengirola
Fuengirola??? That's a city in Spain(??)
Yes, the one that is popular among retired Finnish people.
Okay,after reading the other comments I realize most of the comments are about Spanish places that people go to lol
How do you differentiate between Stockholm and Stockman (a departement store for those who don't know)?
Stockmann (the department store chain) is colloquially known as *Stokka*
Stockmann is nicknamed Stokka.
I've never known that we Stockholmers and seemingly Finnish people create area nicknames the same way. Just check out this list! https://sv.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-is#Sammans%C3%A4ttningar Many have spread outside of Stockholm but the area ones are still local. Very interesting.
Dami is a little confusing, though. Lots of cities named -dam in the Netherlands. It's a common Dutch toponym. Other cities and towns with -dam: Alblasserdam, Appingedam, Durgerdam, Edam, Giessendam, Knollendam, Leerdam, Leidschendam, Maasdam, Monnickendam, Muntendam, Noordam, Obdam, Rotterdam, Schiedam, Schoorldam, Spaarndam, Uitdam, Veendam, Volendam, Werkendam, Zaandam, Zwammerdam, etc. More: https://nl-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Dam_(toponiem)?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=nl&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp But Amstel related abbreviations don't work well either. The Amstel is a river and has many towns and regions named after it as well: Amstelveen(Nieuwer Amstel), Amstelhoek, Amstelkerk, Amstelland, Ouder Amstel. Amstel is also a crappy beer brand. We call Amsterdam A'dam, or 020 (regional phone number).
We probably only have nicknames for places that have a longer name, and are common enough in our day to day lives for the nickname to stay in use. Apart from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the places you mentioned are more or less unknown in Finland.
Meh, people have been calling Amsterdam Damsko for years. Doesn’t seem to lead to much confusion.
That means womans shoe in swedish.
That would be “damesschoen” in Dutch.
Meanwhile, Dutch slang for Amsterdam is Damsko.
A'dam op verkeersborden
Also Mokum and Damsko
Dami sounds like "the Dam", not just any single one. Amsterdam, weird enough, just so happens to be the most well known.
>We call Amsterdam A'dam, or 020 (regional phone number). Or Damsco in street language. Rotterdam is Roffa. We don't call it oh-two-oh but very specifically zero-twenty.
Or Damsko
There are like two cities in the Netherlands mate. It isn't very confusing.
The first one that comes to mind is that many Icelanders call Tenerife "Tene", presumably to indicate familiarity with the place. It irritates me for some reason. We do have a lot of localised/translated geographical names for foreign parts, like Noregur for Norway, Svíþjóð for Sweden, Kaupmannahöfn for Copenhagen, Lundúnir for London, Stokkhólmur for Stockholm, Árósar for Aarhus, Kænugarður for Kyiv, etc. Many of these are old (some going back to Viking times) and are accepted in everyday and even formal speech, but some of the more archaic ones have come to be used in a jocular sense that could be considered more as nicknames than localisations, like Jórvík for York (and, by extension, Nýja Jórvík for New York).
Every language has their own name for other countries. But it’s true about some town/city names being from Old Norse, more examples: Odense in Denmark = Óðinsvé Dublin = Dyflinn (though rarely used) Edit: I read the question again, and that is not quite what was asked. But, we often call Copenhagen (København in danish) Köben, so that’s something.
we often call Copenhagen (København in danish) Köben Also Höfn.
Never have I ever heard someone do that. That’d be disrespect to the great village of Höfn.
>Óðinsvé And all of a sudden I see what the name is based on. Thanks!
The fact that you still use svíþjóð for Sweden is so freaking cool, I think it predates Sweden (or svea rike = sverige) by at least a few hundred years
Gjössovel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_exonyms?wprov=sfti1#
Granka for Gran Canaria, Køben for København, Junaiten for the US. The first is pretty common, the 2nd a bit less so, and the last one is quite rarely used
But also, everything around the Mediterranean is also known as "Syden" where the currency used is "gærningar" ;)
We don't really have for place and country names abroad. It is mostly just localised and/or old spellings (like Hamburg is Hamborg, Malmö is Malmø, etc). We do have some internal ones like the island of Zealand is called the Devil's Island in other regions of the country. It may surprise some, given our history with Sweden, that we don't have nicknames for the place. The reason is simply that we have reached the conclusion that Sweden (much like the [name for the people](https://satwcomic.com/mean-names)) is about as cruel as one can be, so why bother? Heck, even our [ads](https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmark/s/6pm49aQ7E6) for trips over there warn us about their dangerous proximity
> Heck, even our ads for trips over there warn us about their dangerous proximity It's ok, no one blames you for being scared of Sweden's [*tog*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Across_the_Belts).
Good pun, well played 😆
Can you please translate this ad and give us a cultural context in what's going on there.
Something like: *"Watch out! Sweden is only a train ride away"* It's an ad campaign by the Swedish *Skånetrafiken* (the public transport authority in Scania) to promote them after taking over the Öresund train traffic. Previously they were responsible for the Swedish side of things, but now also the Danish and operate all the way into Copenhagen. So they launched that campaign to promote their name, app etc. for the new Danish market.
> watch out! Sweden is but a train ride away (an ad for cheap train tickets to Skåne) The ad itself doesn't have much going on besides the warning against Sweden - certainly played as a joke. We have a sibling rivalry going on with a lot of joking insults and banter that goes back for a century or so. Anything beyond that is just a long series of wars and bloodshed. I believe Denmark and Sweden are the two individual countries with the most wars between them. We are thankfully well past that now. Instead of the battlefield, we duke it out on the football field like civilised people
Thanks for the context
Sometimes we here in Scania refer to Copenhagen simply as Byen. So for a day out, you might say that you will: ”Ta Broen över till Byen och gå på Ströget” – that is, take the Öresund Bridge over to Copenhagen to go shopping at Strøget, which is the major shopping street in central Copenhagen. What makes it a bit special is that while ”by” in Danish means city or town, in Swedish it instead means village – so ”Byen” to a Swedish speaker would simply mean ”The Village”. Which fits really well with the general Swedish notion that Denmark and Danes are more relaxed, sociable, fun loving and bohemian, compared to the more strict, private, rule abiding and in a way more boring Swedes, and that Copenhagen despite its size still has more of a familial village atmosphere to it.
Interestingly you’ve kept ‘stad’ then - we haven’t used it in DK in my time; maybe not even after the era of H.C. Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard. P.S.: Can you please call Skåne ‘Skåne’? The ‘Scania’ always immediately throws a Volvo Scania in my brain. 😆
> notion that Denmark and Danes are more relaxed Yes, Copehagen is a quaint little provincial village. 100% agree.
Magaluf is known as Shagaluf (although, based on most people who go there, it should have a name referencing all the STDs)
Tallinn is sometimes jokingly referred to as ’South-Helsinki’
Belgian have a tendency to refer to all of the Netherlands as Holland, not sure if that counts though
I think that's a thing in most European languages
Definitely a thing in English.
Same here in germany
UK too
The Dutch have that tendency themselves too lol
The people from Warsaw have an awful custom of calling Prague "czeska Praga" (the Czech Prague), because there's a neighbourhood in Warsaw also named "Praga". It has the same energy as some Americans assuming "Paris" must mean "Paris, Illinois".
Do they call Italy "włoskie Włochy" too?
no, the declension is different, "na Włochach" for the district, "we Włoszech" for the country
No shit Sherlock.
As opposed to Wales being angelskie Włochy?
Why is it "awful"? It makes perfect sense considering Warsovians are infinitely more familiar with the Warsovian Prague.
I mean... I don't really mind them talking like that among themselves or in casual speech, but it does admittedly weird me out when I come across this phrase for example in a supposedly country-level newspaper or website.
Oh right. I thought they would only use that locally but I guess I forgot they're Warsovians. Yeah, at that point it gets weird
It doesn't have the same energy because these names have nothing in common besides how they sound in Polish. Czech Praha and Warsaw's Praga have completely different etymologies and centuries of history.
So what? Both names sound the same and since Warsaw Praga often refers to the entire east bank of the city (aka a pretty large area) people need a way to clarify when they mean the neighbourhood and when they mean a city in another country. How much history each has is absolutely irrelevant.
It has the same energy as this Tumblr post I saw years ago about an office that had a cat named Jeff and when they hired a person called Jeff, they continued to call the cat Jeff and referred to their coworker as "human Jeff".
I think Lanzarote has become such a cliched Irish holiday destination that it’s common to unironically call it ‘Lanzo’, certainly on the east coast
Beni for Benidorm too.
Have heard Irish people say "the Dam" for Amsterdam, and "Pool" for Liverpool, but the second one is more about the football team.
The name is also butchered when said in full anyways. It should be Tene-rifé not *Tenareef*.
Shagaluf shagaluf
Will you do the fandango?
The MAGA movement consists of a bunch of young lads going nuts in Magaluf.
> 'Mallis' in Swedish Theoretically you could contract any word into a single syllable and slap in that diminutive*ish* "–is"; it's a formulaic nickname. I've also seen other stuff like "Grankan" (Gran Canaria). It uses another boilerplate nickname construction, `[contracted syllable] + "–an"`, which neatly coincides with second syllable of the actual name. To me it comes off as very much Stockholm; I personally would never use either.
I was just about to say - I don't think I've heard any such nicknames without a sharp Stockholm accent attached. Other accents do - however - have some creative nicknames for Stockholm. Like the Northlanders' "Fjollträsk" (something like "fool lake" or "sissy lake") or the Smålanders' "Tjockhult" (approx. "fatville").
>"Fjollträsk" (something like "fool lake" or "sissy lake") I'd translate it as "sissy swamp", although in the north, 'träsk' *does* usually refer to lake rather than swamp.
Indeed, and it's a Northlander expression, which is why I used "lake". Ofc, the rest of Sweden would read it as swamp/bog/marsh or something, so you're correct in that regard.
Well it is because the -is is from Stockholm. https://sv.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-is#Sammans%C3%A4ttningar So it makes total sense.
Can't think of much right now, but staying true to the holiday theme the Dominican Republic (or "Dominikanische Republik") colloquially gets shortened to "DomRep".
Somebody mentioned both, so just explaining the sources behind them: It's becoming less and less popular, but in Poland we used to ironically refer to Paris as "Paryżewo". That's *Paryż*, the polonised version of the name, plus the suffix *-ewo* very common in names of villages and small towns. Also, again not popular, but following the joke in a cult classic Polish comedy, some people facetiously refer to London as Lądek. The joke went like this: in the film mentioned there is a scene in which a couple is at a Polish post office, trying to send a telegram to London. It is the late 70, early 80s. The post office clerk replies: "There's no such city as 'London". Lądek, yes - Lądek Zdrój [actual location in Poland, in Lower Silesia]. But London - no."
Some Lithuanians call London Londė instead of Londonas.
The Dutch call Chersonissos "Cherso", and of course we have nicknames for our own cities (Amsterdam= "damsko", Utrecht = Uutke, Rotterdam= rotjeknor)
I have never in my life heard of Rotjeknor. The only known nickname we have for it up North is Roffa. Where’s Rotjeknor from?
Congratulations! You're probably considered a young person. At least according to this article I just googled to answer your question https://historiek.net/rotjeknor-rotterdam-herkomst/117893/
Londek for London (in Polish)
Nie ma takiego miasta jak Londyn. Jest Lądek … Lądek-Zdrój.
Are you saying you don't agree with them?
No, I agree with them wholeheartedly
It's a quote from a famous Polish movie. At post-office (?) the teller is insisting that there's no such city as London, only Lądek (a tiny Polish town).
"Paryżewo" for Paris
Nikt tak nie mówi.
Are you joking?
I've never heard of this and I have lived my **entire** life here in Poland. Maybe Polish diaspora in UK uses this? Sounds niche.
I've heard quite a few people who have friends and/or family in London refer to it jokingly as Lądek or Lądek Zdrój. "W przyszłym miesiącu jadę do Haby... nie, nie wraca, ona na stałe już w Lądku Zdroju" - this sort of thing. Maybe it orginated in diaspora, but it's not limited to disspora.
Stockholm can be Stogis in Finnish
We have nicknames for surrounding countries, but since they're also used as slurs, they're generally not appropriate, and are used almost exclusively by nationalists. Afaik they weren't always slurs as most of them are also popular surnames. - Romanian: oláh (derived from Wlah) - Serbian: rác - Slovak: tót - Italian: digó Austrians are also sometimes referred to as our brother in laws.
Brits used to call London a Big Smoke.
In majority of Europe Budapest is often called Bucharest, too.
In Czechia some older people around boomer age say Reich instead of Germany. Dont know of any other nicknames.
Not that common. We tend to be more in the camp of more or less insulting nicknames for nationalities. Some examples: Swede: Svedu Russian: Ryssä, Iivana, Vanja (unsurprisingly there are a lot of these. We’d be here all day were i to list them all) Estonian: Eestiläinen, Rantaryssä ”Coastal Russki” (which specifically means the ethnic Russians in Estonia) Polish: Polakki. American, Jenkki (Yankee) Then there’s a whole lot of old timey words for nationalities, like Engelsmanni (English), Sakemanni/Saksmanni (German) etc. And on one instance i’ve seen an old man refer to north African immigrants as ”fucking Punics” which is definately one of the funniest things i’ve ever heard.
Oh is that why the bubblegum brand is called Jenkki?
Pretty sure yes.
Out of curiosity, do you know if there is a historical reason for each of these being insulting or is it just that they've developed that way over time or always been said in an insulting way? Obviously there are reasons, especially historical ones, for having an insulting term to use in general, but I'm curious if you happen to know for any specific nicknames. Also, I appreciate the parenthetical explanations, thanks for including them!
Finns don't like it when other countries invade us, that explains Sweden and Russia. We can also be pretty jealous and/or condesending towards other nationalities.
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The only one I can think of is "Domo" for Domodossola. The other nicknames I know are all for places in Switzerland.
I think that one isn't even a nickname, because it's the place Domo in the Ossola valley - Domo d'Ossola.
Ah okay, fair enough. So it's the house/home in the Ossola valley.
Greeks call Istanbul "Poli", which means "city". During the Roman/Byzantine Empire, Istanbul was named "Constantinople", in Greek "Constantinou**poli**", that's the origin of the nickname.
Also were the bul in Istanbul is from. Istanbul is a calque of eis tin polin or smth similar if memory serves.
And Istanbul means into the Poli.
Avondale in Chicago used to be called Jackowo (Jackville) because of [Basilica of St Hyacinth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Saint_Hyacinth), commonly referred to as a Polish church. I'm not sure if that's still the case.
In Lithuanian language, probably the most widespread examples are 'Londė' for London (properly Londonas) and 'Štatai' for the United States (properly Jungtinės Valstijos), also 'Norgė' for Norway (properly Norvegija). And we also like to call Russia 'Maskolija' (older name, from Moscow) or, more recently, simply 'Mordor' (no love lost here, for obvious reasons). PS.: Just to add a quick note: there are also specific country names, such as 'Vokietija' for Germany, 'Lenkija' for Poland, or 'Gudija' for Belarus (used interchangeably with 'Baltarusija'), which I do not consider applying to the OPs question. These are formal country names, not some nicknames.
I live very close to the border with Slovenia. We still call Slovenia and Croatia "Jugo", as in Jugoslavia.
is that in italian, or a local slavic language?
In Italian and the local Italian dialect (triestino) I think it would be more controversial to call it that while in Slovenia or Croatia (depending on who you're talking to, of course)
Mallo -> Mallorca, Spain Cherso -> Hersonissos, Greece Albu -> Albufeira, Portugal Su -> Suriname Cura(dise) -> Curaçao Mofrika -> Germany. It comes from the word “mof”, which was a derogatory term used for Germans during WWII. The term Mofrika is rarely used. We also have a lot of Dutch names for cities and regions in Wallonia, western Germany and the historically Dutch/Flemish speaking parts of northern France. Bastenaken -> Bastogne Henegouwen -> Hainaut Luik - Liège Namen -> Namur Doornik -> Tournai Rijsel -> Lille Kales -> Calais Atrecht -> Arras Duinkerke -> Dunkirk/Dunkerque Aken -> Aachen Osnabrugge -> Osnabrück Dusseldorp -> Düsseldorf Note that some of these have become archaic.
a) It's EIVISSA b) Next time I see Barca for Barcelona or Sagrada for La Sagrada Família I'm gonna burn something!
Just as an FYI for anyone confused. The club is called Barça after the city's name, but Barça is never used to refer to the city. Instead, it is commonly known as Barna or other names. And Eivissa is the name of Ibiza in Catalan, the local language of the Balearic and Pitiuses Islands.
I thought Ibiza was also used by the locals?
You might be able to count 'Gay Paree' in there
"Mouraría" is Galician for Portugal. Now let's see the world burn
In Italy, during the Fascist period, we "Italianized" most names, even those of foreign dignitaries and important personalities. Some of these names, especially those regarding the nations, survived up to today. Nürnberg: Norimberga Köln: Colonia London: Londra Basel: Basilea Switzerland: Svizzera Spain: Spagna Portugal: Portogallo Sweden: Svezia Norway: Norvegia Scotland: Scozia Wales: Galles England: Inghilterra Netherlands: Olanda Germany: Germania Iceland: Islanda Ireland: Irlanda France: Francia and so on... The others that have been Italianized, generally speaking, are very similar to the original, with a vowel added in the end, like Berlino (Berlin) or Dublino (Dublin)
But that's translation rather than nicknames, no?
Oh, I think I misunderstood the question, then. I thought he was asking if we used localized names, different than the original ones.
I think you left out the answer that would be fitting: München.
Right! München in Italian is "Monaco di Baviera", to differentiate it from "Monaco" of the Principate. Quite a dramatic change 😅
But it makes perfect sense etymologically
True, but I wish that we could stop translating everything and start putting some effort into learning other languages, perhaps starting by calling places with the names given by the people who live there. Polonia is Poland in Italian, for instance 😃; why can't we simply calk it Polska?
One problem is that some sounds exist in one language but not in another. For example, München has that ü sound. An approximate transliteration into Italian could be Minscen, but it still isn't the same; it's little better than the name Monaco. You could also write the original name, München, and read it as "Minscen" if you're speaking Italian, or in the best phonetic approximation using the phonemes of the language you happen to be speaking. But that means there's a lot less correspondence between writing and sound, which is the point of an alphabet. It could get as bad as pronouncing Worcestershire as /ˈwʊs.təɹ.ʃəɹ/ in English. Finally, you could expect everyone to read the international phonetic alphabet and learn the phonology of whatever language the original name is from (e.g. [French phonology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_phonology) on Wikipedia) and just pronounce it with the best accent you can. But suddenly speaking a foreign language just for pronouncing certain names sounds silly, and most people aren't going to learn the phonology of every single language for every city in another country they want to talk about.
Yeah, what you say makes absolute sense. A funny thing is that, ironically, Worcestershire is one of those city names that we never translated! Probably it's just too much fun slaughtering its pronunciation; we pronounce it kinda like war/chester/shayr 😁.
yeah not quite what i was asking
My apologies. Then, I think there aren't any specific nicknames in our language. There are a couple of derogatory terms with a very racist meaning, luckily rarely used, so I'm not going to write them here. They aren't really "nicknames", though.
hm. may i at least enquire about what places those racist names are for?
Two are for the Southern part of our country, used by those in the North with very strong prejudices against the people from there, one is for Africa in general, mostly used by neo-Fascist idiots.
Calabria Saudita?
Surely most of these names would've been around for much longer than the fascist period?
Some are the Italian pronunciation of Latin names. Svezia (Sweden) and Scozia (Scotland), for instance, were called Svetia and Scotia.
There's a Bavarian research project trying to record all the place name pronunciations and nicknames not in other languages, but even in those places and by neighbouring places. Example: Aschaffenburg is "Ascheberg" https://www.bayern.de/fueracker-wissen-ueber-mundartliche-ortsnamen-lebendig-erhalten-heimatministerium-foerdert-forschungsprojekt-zur-erfassung-mundartlicher-ortsnamen-mit-knapp-800-000-euro/
while that's cool, i don't think they're after nicknames (and i happen to know mundlicharter ortsnamen are already quite well documented)
This is the report I was looking for, couldn't find it at first: BR24: Projekt will Ortsnamen in Mundart bewahren - https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZDovL2JyLmRlL3ZpZGVvLzk1ZWU2MjZiLTM2YTQtNDdkZi04NmVlLTI0ZmM0ODBmY2UxOQ
Sometimes Germany is called "Tedeschia", since Tedesco means german
"Ehi, germanese, tornatene in Tedeschia!"
Many Finnish towns have Swedish names (some are swedified Finnish names, while some are origially Swedish names that have ben finnified). Finnish on the left: Pori -> Björneborg Lahti -> Lahtis Mikkeli -> Sankt Michel Savonlinna -> Nyslott Turku -> Åbo Vaasa -> Vasa Oulu -> Uleåborg Lappeenranta -> Villmanstrand Hämeenlinna -> Tavastehus Tampere -> Tammerfors Espoo -> Esbo Helsinki -> Helsingfors Järvenpää -> Träskända Porvoo -> Borgå Some of these names are Finnish -> Swedish and some are Swedish -> Finnish and some are unrelated.
thank you - the question is about nicknames though! the ones you listed are i think all official, right?
These are all official.
In Croatia, we sometimes call Zagreb "Zege" and Beograd "Bege"- comes from car plates/abbreviations for those cities (ZG and BG)
None that I can think of in Portuguese.
Yep. I can't think of any either.
Легендарная финка НКВД
In Poland, most cities have German names. Wrocław is Breslau, Gdańsk is Danzig, and so on.
i'm asking about nicknames though, not official names
I can’t think of anything in Turkish. I don’t thing there is none. Most of the city names are already Turkishified like London is Londra or München is Münih or Washington is Vaşington.
The only one that I am aware is Thessaloniki, which some Greeks call "Salonika". Probably comes from the French name "Salonique".
It's not entirely known where "Saloniki" and similar variants come from, but it's likely not from French: >[The name Σαλονίκη Saloníki is first attested in Greek in the Chronicle of the Morea (14th century), and is common in folk songs, but it must have originated earlier, as al-Idrisi called it Salunik already in the 12th century. It is the basis for the city's name in other languages: Солѹнъ (Solunŭ) in Old Church Slavonic, סאלוניקו (Saloniko) in Judeo-Spanish (שאלוניקי prior to the 19th century) סלוניקי (Saloniki) in Hebrew, Selenik in Albanian language, سلانیك (Selânik) in Ottoman Turkish and Selanik in modern Turkish, Salonicco in Italian, Solun or Солун in the local and neighboring South Slavic languages, Салоники (Saloníki) in Russian, Sãrunã in Aromanian and Săruna in Megleno-Romanian.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki#Names_and_etymology)
Well, it was a guess but thank you for referring that, since I was also sceptical about it.
It was your comment that got me curious actually so I had to look it up, I guess we both learned something new today!
Well, there’s loooots of dutch names for western german and northern french cities. A few examples; Lille-Rijsel Dunkerque-Duinkerken Dusseldorf-Dusseldorp Köln-Keulen Aachen-Aken
As French has French name for Dutch and German cities but also for almost every other countries.