Portland: What’s in a Name?
Every city has a nickname or two but Portland seems to have about a dozen. Here are a few monikers we’ve heard tossed about and their origin stories:
STUMPTOWN - this name has gained national notoriety with the proliferation of the eponymous coffee roaster but few people outside of the state know that this is a nickname for Portland. Apparently, the city grew so rapidly in the middle of the nineteenth century that trees were being felled right and left but they didn’t have the resources to remove the roots. As a result, the city was full of stumps.
ROSE CITY / CITY OF ROSES - If you take a walk around a residential block during most times of the year, this name will certainly seem fitting. This nickname took root early last century when rose bushes were planted to line 20 miles of Portland’s streets in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in 1905. A lesser known fact is that during World War I, Portland became a haven for European rose varieties. The International Rose Test Garden was planted in 1917 and is definitely worth a visit in the spring and summer months. The City adopted “City of Roses” as its official nickname in 2003.
RIP CITY - Basketball fans are familiar with this sobriquet even if the origin story is a bit fuzzy. Apparently, the Trailblazers were getting trounced by their biggest rivals, the LA Lakers at a home game in the early 70s. The team managed to close a 20 point gap and when a player hit a shot to tie the game, an over-zealous announcer yelled, “Rip City!” out of excitement. The phrase must have caught the public’s attention because it stuck.
PDX - This is, quite simply, the airport code for the International Airport in town. You’ll see businesses tack this onto their urls (look up!) to indicate their Portland location and people use this in shorthand typing when referring to the city.
+++BONUS KNOWLEDGE+++
There was a 50/50 chance that the city of Portland could have been named Boston instead. Two of the city’s founders - Pettygrove and Lovejoy (these names might be familiar because they’ve now got streets named after them) - both wanted to name the city after their hometowns on the East Coast. We’ve heard stories of people mistakenly flying to PDX when they thought they were going to Maine but can you imagine if there was a Boston on both coasts?!