US State Nicknames

Every one of the 50 states has at least one nickname, and most have several. In Wikipedia's list of state and territory nicknames, 47 states carry more than one name; only Iowa, Texas and Washington carry a single one. A few nicknames are set by law, Arizona's Grand Canyon State being the documented example. Many are only customary, and Alabama and Indiana have no official nickname at all.

What is the nickname of every state?

The table above runs through the states alphabetically. Each row shows up to three nicknames from Wikipedia's list, leaving out names that list marks as historical, no longer used, satirical or pejorative. The two-letter codes are the postal abbreviations, and the capital is the seat of government, which is not always the largest city. New York's capital is Albany, for instance, and California's is Sacramento. The states and capitals page covers that side in more detail.

The search box looks at every column. Typing "sunshine" brings up Florida, and typing "empire" brings up New York and Georgia, whose Empire State of the South is a different name. Some states answer several lookups at once. California, for example, is the Golden State and the El Dorado State, and New York is the Empire State and the Excelsior State.

Which state nicknames are official?

Arizona gives the clearest answer. Arizona Revised Statutes section 41-860.01 reads: "State nickname 'The Grand Canyon state' is the official state nickname." The legislature's own site carries that text, and the same name appears on Arizona's license plates according to Wikipedia's list. That makes Arizona the one state for which this page can point to a statute.

Elsewhere the picture is less tidy. Wikipedia's list prints some names in bold to mark them as official, and that markup does not hold up. The Encyclopedia of Alabama says that Alabama does not have an official nickname, though it is often called the Heart of Dixie; the yellowhammer is the official state bird. Wikipedia's article on Indiana's state symbols says the General Assembly never officially adopted a nickname, and that "Hoosier" is the official demonym. New Jersey's Garden State became the official state slogan by law in 2017, as WHYY reported, while the state's own website lists it as the nickname. Whether a name counts as official therefore depends on the source. Beyond these cases, the legal standing of a nickname is unresolved in the sources consulted.

Which states have more than one nickname?

Most do. Maryland and Michigan are two states where a state source confirms a pair of names, Maine's pair comes from Wikipedia's list alone, and New Jersey is a special case.

At the other end, Iowa (Hawkeye State), Texas (Lone Star State) and Washington (Evergreen State) appear with one name each, and the Evergreen State is the name printed on Washington's license plates. Colorado and Florida have the longest lists, twelve entries each, although the list marks several of Colorado's as no longer in use. Entries on such lists often carry labels in the source, such as "no longer used," "historical" or "colloquial."

What do the nicknames actually name?

Sorted by the word in the name, without any claim about where it came from, the nicknames fall into a few groups. A good part of them name a plant or an animal. Others name the land and water, and a few point to stone or metal.

Bluegrass is a grass, which is why it sits under plants, although the Bluegrass State is just as much a statement about Kentucky's countryside. Gem State is a mineral name, not a landscape, and sits with stone. Some names use none of these words and name a person, a position or a phrase: Land of Lincoln (Illinois), The First State (Delaware), The Last Frontier (Alaska) and the Show-Me State (Missouri).

Which words come up in more than one state's nicknames?

Reading down the table, a handful of words turn up in several states. They make useful anchors when the names run together, and the groups below are taken from the table itself.

• Old: Old Line State (Maryland), Old Colony State (Massachusetts), Old North State (North Carolina) and The Old Dominion (Virginia).
• Crossroads: Crossroads of America (Indiana), The Crossroads of the Revolution (New Jersey) and Crossroads of the West (Utah).
• Mountain: Green Mountain State (Vermont), White Mountain State (New Hampshire) and Mountain State (West Virginia).
• Land of: Land of the Midnight Sun (Alaska), Land of Lincoln (Illinois), Land of 10,000 Lakes (Minnesota) and Land of Enchantment (New Mexico).
• Star: North Star State (Minnesota) and Lone Star State (Texas).
• Garden: Garden State (New Jersey) and Peace Garden State (North Dakota).
• Empire: Empire State (New York) and Empire State of the South (Georgia).

Two pairs of words point in opposite directions: Delaware is The First State and North Carolina is First in Flight, while Alaska is The Last Frontier and Montana is The Last Best Place. The groups show only which words repeat. They say nothing about why a state chose its name.

How many nicknames does the table hold?

The table above holds 108 names for the 50 states. Thirteen states have three, thirty-two have two and five have one: Iowa, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. The table shows at most three names per state, so a state with a single entry here can still have more in Wikipedia's longer list, which is why New Mexico and South Carolina count among the 47 states with several names there.

Of the 108 names, 83 end in the word State, and 47 states have at least one such name. Alaska, New Mexico and Virginia are the three whose entries here take other forms, such as The Last Frontier, Land of Enchantment and The Old Dominion. The counts describe this table as printed, not the full set of names ever used for a state.

Do the territories and Washington, D.C. have nicknames?

Yes, according to Wikipedia's list, which covers five US territories and the federal district.

The list gives several places a second name as well: Guam is also called the Hub of the Pacific and the Gateway to Micronesia, and Washington, D.C. carries "End Taxation Without Representation" on its license plates. Håfa Adai is printed on license plates of the Northern Mariana Islands, but the list's footnote says it is unclear whether it is an official nickname.

Can you name the nickname of each state?

The groups of recurring words offer one more way to study: learn the shared word first, then the state that goes with each variant. The search box works in both directions. Typing part of a nickname, such as "hoosier" or "tar heel," leaves the state it belongs to. Practicing the other way means covering the nickname column and saying the name for each state before uncovering it. Ten states picked at random make a short round, and the states that were missed go into the next one.

For the map side of the same task, the US states quiz names a state and asks for it to be found on the map, and the printable US map serves paper practice.