These Are Our Favourite Nicknames Of Places In Victoria
These place nicknames are according to you, not us.
Every year, the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC) asks Australians for their input. This year, they’re asking Australians to help them out with food terms and food-related phrases. However, the appeal to all Australians first began with “nicknames for Australian placenames” in 2019. And some of the results are absolute beauties.
We’ve taken a look through the long, long list and selected some of our favourites. Bear in mind that some towns and places have more than one nickname and we’ve just selected the ones we think are the funniest, strangest, most ironic, or flat-out, say what? Or, some that just made us laugh.
- Abbotsford is Clifton Hill South
- Altona is Stinky Tona
- Aspendale is Assy
- Ballarat is Balifornia
- Bendigo is Benders and Bendighetto
- Braybrook is Struggletown
- Briagalong is Bring ya bong along
- Coburg is Coburgistan
- Collingwood is Clifton Hill South
- Cranbourne is Crimebourne
- Dandenong is Dandebong and that Shithole
- Frankston is Frankenston’s Monston, Funkytown and Moe by the Sea
- Geelong is Geetroit and Sleepy Hollow
- Highpoint is Knifepoint
- Hoppers Crossing is Wife Swappers Crossing
- Kew is Far Kew
- Latrobe Valley is Latrine Valley
- Long Gully is Bong Gully
- Noble Park is Chernobyl Park
- Orbost is Almost
- Pakenham is Smacky Packy
- Preston is Depressedton
- St Albans is Stab Albans
- Warnambool is God’s Country
- Wodonga is I’ll bring my donger
- Wonthaggi is Moe by the Sea
And what about Melbourne?
Bleak City, Mel Brooks, Melboring, Melbs, Melbum, Smelbourne and Smellbun.
If you’re interested, you can check out the entire, Australia-wide list here.
According to the ANDC, “the informal names we use for our regions, cities, towns, and suburbs” (along with all subsequent appeals) go towards supplementing the database and would help identify possible new entries for the Australian National Dictionary (AND). It would also enrich Australian English and reveal “similarities between the patterns of nicknaming and other forms of word generation in Australian English.” You can check out their initial observations here.
And, you can contribute to the food terms and food-related phrases appeal here.