What’s in a name?

Very few people know what New York City and ancient Rome have in common

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New York City has so many monikers that one of them could very well be The City of Nicknames. Throughout its history, the most populous city in the United States has received different names, some of which refer to its political and cultural significance, while others were coined in an ironic or satirical way. Because there is a life beyond The Big Apple, in this article, we will uncover the history behind 10 New York nicknames you probably didn't know about. Are you ready?

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This is probably the most widespread nickname for New York. Although it became popular in the 1970s as an advertising campaign to attract tourists, it actually emerged as early as the 1920s. It was coined by a sportswriter named John Joseph Fitz Gerald, who at the time worked for the New York Morning Telegraph.

The expression The Big Apple in relation to New York City was used for the first time in an article on horse racing. As it was later revealed, Fitz Gerald picked it up from the way New Orleans stable hands referred to the city. "Big Apple" was what the jockeys called turf money prizes, and the biggest prize they could aspire to was, of course, in NYC.

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The nickname The Empire City refers to New York State's moniker. But in turn, it is said to derive from a statement by one of our Founding Fathers. Supposedly, George Washington once said about the city: "Surely this is the seat of the empire!".

The first written reference appeared in 1836 in an Illinois newspaper, which stated: New York City is "the Rome of America, the Empire City of the New World."

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In 1898, New York City was consolidated into five counties or boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and later the Bronx. So, it is not surprising that at some point in history, the nickname The Five Boroughs began to be used to refer to the city, especially when alluding to the entire metropolitan area and not just Manhattan, the city center.

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Today, no one would doubt that New York is a city that never sleeps: it has a lively cultural life, you'll always find a place open for a bite to eat, and you can even take the subway 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But what you may not know is that this has always been the essence of the city.

At least since the 1880s, people referred to New York City as The City That Never Sleeps for its evening mail delivery, electric lighting, and its mythical nightlife. Yet, it was Frank Sinatra who canonized the moniker in the lyrics of the song "New York, New York".

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What do ancient Rome and the most populous city in the United States have in common? At some point in their history, the two cities were dubbed The Capital of the World. In a 1948 essay, author E. B. White, best known for his children's books, borrowed the expression Caput Mundi from the Roman poet Lucan to refer to New York City.

Here is New York is an ode to one of the most iconic places in the world and, according to The New Yorker, is one of the best pieces ever written about the ever-changing city.

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In the same grandiloquent vein as The Capital of the World, The Center of the Universe is a nickname coined by Robert F. Wagner Jr., mayor of New York City between 1954 and 1965.

Perhaps the moniker is a bit of an exaggeration, but we must admit that NYC is a cosmopolitan and influential city where culture flourishes, finance thrives, and where some of the most important events in history have taken place.

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Yes, as you can imagine, this nickname is inspired by the many songs about the city with the title "New York, New York", one of which was popularized by Frank Sinatra.

The City So Nice They Named It Twice was first used in the late 1950s by musician Jon Hendricks. However, it was late-night talk show host David Letterman who made a version of this nickname famous in 1984.

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New York City is like a modern-day Tower of Babel. It is one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world, where all kinds of ethnicities and languages coexist —an estimated 700! Therefore, it is no coincidence that the city has been blessed with the nickname The Melting Pot, reflecting its great cultural diversity.

The term was used by several authors throughout history, including Henry James, but was ultimately popularized in 1908 by the play The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill, which tells the story of a Jewish immigrant who escapes a Russian pogrom to rebuild his life in New York.

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You may think New York City got the nickname Gotham from the DC comic Batman. But in reality, it was the other way around. The first person to link Gotham to the city was the American short story writer Washington Irving in 1807. In turn, the author was inspired by a medieval English proverb about a village called Gotham, meaning "Goat's Town".

This tale tells the story of the town’s residents, who, to avoid the king's reprisals, pretended to be fools. Of course, Irving used this negative connotation of the term to satirize NYC. When Gotham began to be associated with the Dark Knight in the 1940s, the nickname came to invoke not New York's foolish aspects but its darker side.

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In stark contrast to Batman's dark Gotham, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, authors of Superman, created their Metropolis in reference to the city's cheerier face, that is, New York in the daytime. The main location of the comic book was first called Metropolis in 1939. The rest is history!

Warding off evil spirits

Beyond luck: The surprising origins of 12 popular superstitions

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Many of our most enduring superstitions —such as refraining from stepping under a ladder or avoiding spilling salt— date back centuries. Many have to do with religion, while others we have borrowed from ancient cultures’ traditions. Yet, almost all of them have in common the need to prevent bad fortune or, on the contrary, to attract good luck. In this article, we have compiled 12 popular superstitions and their respective origins. You probably already follow many of them, but do you know the fascinating stories behind them?

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Did you know that many buildings don't have a 13th floor, and many hotels skip rooms ending in 13? This is a superstition deeply rooted in Western culture! The bad reputation of the number 13 is at odds with the lucky number 12, which represents wholeness: the number of months of the year, the gods of Olympus, the signs of the zodiac, etc.

The number 13, on the other hand, is associated with a legend from Norse mythology. Loki, a shape-shifter god, was the thirteenth to arrive at a party, where he tricked another guest into killing the god Baldur. Does this story sound familiar? For Christianity, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, Judas, was the thirteenth guest at the Last Supper.

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While felines were considered sacred animals in civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, in the Middle Ages, black cats began to be associated with witches.

During the time of the European Inquisition, many women were accused of practicing witchcraft, and their black feline companions suffered the same fate. The belief that black cats were the incarnation of witches and that crossing paths with one brought bad luck reached the United States at the time of the Salem witch trials.

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We are all afraid to walk under a ladder, but very few know the origin of this superstition that extends across several cultures. For Christianity, anything in the shape of a triangle symbolizes the Holy Trinity. If you walk under a triangle-shaped ladder, you would be profaning the sacred and invoking the devil.

In medieval times, in turn, the space below an open ladder was associated with the bottom of the gallows. Thus, it was believed that a person who made the mistake of walking under a ladder would face their own death by hanging in the near future.

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Some believe this superstition is ancient, dating back to the Egyptians, no less! As far as we know, in the Land of the Pharaohs, it was very common to use parasols to protect from the sun, but opening them indoors was considered an insult to the Sun God.

Another theory claims that our belief that opening an umbrella indoors brings bad luck originated in Victorian England. At the time, modern mechanical umbrellas began to become popular, and people considered it too dangerous to open them indoors. Pretty common sense, don't you think?

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The idea that rabbits bring good luck is probably rooted in Celtic folklore. They believed that since rabbits live underground, they have a direct line of communication with the gods.

In more recent times, the animal's reputation for fertility made rabbit amulets popular among women hoping to conceive. Most rabbit's foot amulets today are made of fake fur and plastic, yet the superstition is as alive as ever.

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There are at least two theories that explain why spilling salt brings bad luck. In ancient civilizations such as Sumerian, Egyptian, and Greek, salt was an extremely expensive and coveted commodity, so spilling it was a huge waste.

The other theory states that salt was considered a magical substance used to perform rituals. Spilling it meant the devil was invited in. Luckily, if you make the mistake of spilling some salt, there is a way to nullify the bad luck: just throw a pinch over your left shoulder to scare away the bad spirits!

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In most English-speaking countries, it is almost an unconscious reflex to bless someone when they sneeze. Some believe this custom has its origin in an ancient superstition: the soul is separated from the body when we sneeze.

However, the most accurate theory states that this tradition began in the sixth century A.D. when a deadly disease began to spread through Italy. Pope Gregory the Great instructed people to pray for the sick when they sneezed with a simple but, according to him, infallible plea, "God bless you!"

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According to this popular belief, breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. But why seven and not six or eight? Believe it or not, there’s an explanation!

For one, in ancient times, the mirror was considered a literal reflection of the soul. This, added to the Roman myth that our body is "renewed" every seven years, fed the superstition that breaking a mirror means condemning your soul to seven years of bad luck.

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Horseshoes are a classic symbol of good luck. But do you know where the tradition comes from? It originated in a Christian story about a 10th-century saint. According to legend, Dunstan was a blacksmith who one day was asked by the deceiving Devil to shoe his horse. The clever Dunstan, however, saw through the disguise and nailed the shoe to the Devil's foot instead.

The blacksmith finally agreed to remove the painful nails only if the Devil promised never to enter a house with a horseshoe hanging on the doorway. Still today, it is customary to hang a horseshoe with seven nails over the door to protect houses, barns, and stables from evil spirits.

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In the rich tapestry of symbols created by humans throughout history, few are as universal as the four-leaf clover. This rare variant of the common clover has transcended its botanical virtues to become an emblem of good luck.

The tradition of the four-leaf clover dates back to antiquity. Druids, the high-ranking professional class in ancient Celtic cultures, considered them powerful amulets capable of warding off evil spirits and bringing good luck. The difficulty of finding one in the wild —an estimated 1 in 5,000— probably contributed to its mystique and value as an amulet.

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Knocking on wood to prevent disappointment is a very popular superstition in the United States. However, it has its origins in the ancient pagans who believed that spirits lived in trees. To invoke them and ask for protection, they would knock on the trunks. The ritual was also performed to thank them when something good happened.

Other cultures later adopted the tradition. Some Christians associated the gesture with the rite of touching a crucifix when taking an oath, while Jews connected it to knocking on the wooden doors of synagogues when seeking refuge during the Spanish Inquisition.

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The custom of predicting the weather through animals was adapted from German culture. In the ancient tradition of Candlemas, celebrated on February 2, members of the clergy distributed blessed candles that were used to determine how long the winter would last.

In the same way, Germans also kept track of the hibernation time of animals. They used to closely follow badgers, but when settlers came to the United States and chose Pennsylvania as their home, they found groundhogs to be a better option.