100 Fun Facts About State Nicknames

Which state is known as the Yellowhammer State?

Alabama's Confederate troops got the name when the yellow they wore recalled the yellowhammer woodpecker; the best-known story credits a Huntsville cavalry company's bright yellow trim.

Which nickname appears on Alaska's license plates?

The Last Frontier suits the largest state in the Union and the most thinly settled, and the state motto, North to the Future, looks the same way.

Arizona's best-known nickname honours which of its landmarks?

The Grand Canyon is named on Arizona's license plates, but the state flag's copper star points to another nickname, the Copper State: Arizona produces more copper than any other state.

Which slogan ran on Arkansas license plates before 'The Natural State'?

Land of Opportunity first appeared on the plates in 1950 and lasted, with one break, until 1989, when the plates switched to a pitch for the state's mountains, lakes and hot springs.

Which state has been called the 'El Dorado State' as well as by its better-known official nickname?

California was nicknamed El Dorado after the fabled South American city of gold; the Golden State, official since 1968, honours both the 1848 gold discovery and the state's fields of golden poppies.

Which state became the Centennial State in 1876, a century after the Declaration of Independence?

Colorado joined the Union on August 1, 1876, and its three electoral votes that year went to Rutherford B. Hayes, who won the presidency by a single electoral vote.

Connecticut's 'Constitution State' nickname honours the 1639 Fundamental Orders, which united Windsor, Wethersfield and which other town?

Hartford joined Windsor and Wethersfield under the Orders, which never once mention the king or England; whether they count as the first written constitution is still disputed.

Delaware calls itself 'The First State' because it was the first to ratify what?

The US Constitution was ratified by Delaware on December 7, 1787, before any other state, yet 'The First State' only became its official nickname under a 2002 law.

Which state's license plates read 'Sunshine State'?

Florida stamped 'Sunshine State' on its plates from 1949, but lawmakers only made it the official nickname in 1970.

The Peach State's unofficial nickname 'the Goober State' refers to which crop?

Peanuts, not peaches, are the Peach State's official crop; 'goober' probably comes from a Bantu word for the peanut, such as Kimbundu 'nguba'.

Which 'Cowboy State' has carried a bucking horse and rider on its license plates since 1936?

Wyoming's emblem is credited to soldier George Ostrom, who modelled it on his own horse for a unit contest in France in 1918; the 1936 plate used a drawing by Colorado artist Allen True.

Which state is nicknamed the Gem State?

Idaho got the nickname because Congress was told its name was a Shoshone word for 'gem of the mountains'; lobbyist George Willing later said he had simply made the word up.

'Land of Lincoln' is on Illinois's license plates, but which older nickname does the state also go by?

Prairie State is an unofficial name for a state once mostly covered in prairie grass, whose sticky soil clogged ploughs until Illinois blacksmith John Deere built a steel one in 1837.

John Finley's 1833 poem 'The Hoosier's Nest' popularised the nickname of which state's residents?

Indiana residents were 'Indianians' in federal style until 2017, when the Government Publishing Office finally accepted 'Hoosier', a word whose origin nobody has settled.

Iowa's 'Hawkeye State' nickname is usually traced to a character in which novel?

The Last of the Mohicans has a scout called Hawkeye, but Burlington editor James Edwards, who renamed his paper The Hawk-Eye to push the name, said it honoured the Sauk leader Black Hawk.

Kansans are called 'Jayhawkers' after 1850s guerrilla bands who fought over whether the territory would allow what?

Slavery was the fight in 'Bleeding Kansas'; one story has free-state raider Pat Devlin joking that he raided like the jayhawk, an Irish bird that robs nests, and the name later spread to all Kansans.

Kentucky's 'Bluegrass State' nickname refers to a grass that has long supported which industry?

Thoroughbred horse breeding settled around Lexington because the bluegrass there grows on limestone soil rich in calcium, which is credited with giving the horses that graze it strong bones.

The Pelican State is the only US state whose county-level divisions are called what?

Parishes stand in for counties in Louisiana, and many are still run by an elected board called a police jury, a name found nowhere else in the country that has nothing to do with courts.

Which nickname appears on Maine's standard license plates?

Vacationland stayed put when Maine added a red lobster behind the numbers in 1987, its first picture plate, and again when a chickadee took the lobster's place in 1999.

Maryland's 'Free State' nickname caught on in the 1920s after the state refused to pass what kind of law?

Prohibition enforcement was the law Maryland refused; Baltimore Sun editor Hamilton Owens answered a congressman's attack with a mock editorial urging secession, then decided not to print it.

Which Maryland nickname is said to come from the Continental Army's commander praising the state's regiments?

The Old Line State recalls the Maryland Line, some 400 of whom charged a far larger British force at Long Island in 1776, buying time for Washington's army to escape.

Which state's license plates carry the slogan 'Sportsman's Paradise'?

Louisiana could not settle on the spelling: its plates said 'Sportsmen's Paradise' in 1958, 'Sportsman's' in 1959, 'Sportsmen's' again from 1961 to 1963, then 'Sportsman's' from 1964.

Michigan's 'Wolverine State' nickname may have begun as an Ohio insult during an 1835 border war over which city?

Toledo went to Ohio and Michigan got the Upper Peninsula instead; the animal itself was so scarce that a 2004 sighting was the state's first confirmed wolverine in about 200 years.

Minnesota's state motto, written in French, gives the state which of its nicknames?

North Star State is the motto in English: 'L'Étoile du Nord' means 'Star of the North', and first governor Henry Sibley picked it for the state seal, which lawmakers approved along with the motto in 1861.

Which state is nicknamed the Magnolia State?

Mississippi voters approved a new state flag in 2020 with a magnolia blossom at its centre; the banner it replaced was the last state flag to carry the Confederate battle emblem.

The 'Show-Me State' nickname is usually credited to a banquet speech by Congressman Willard Vandiver of which state?

Missouri's Vandiver told a Philadelphia banquet that frothy eloquence did not satisfy him and 'you have got to show me', but the saying was already in print in the 1890s, so he spread it rather than coined it.

Which state is nicknamed the Treasure State, though many know it better as 'Big Sky Country'?

Montana's plates swapped 'Treasure State' for 'Big Sky Country' in 1967 and brought the older slogan back in 2010; the name honours the gold and silver mines that also gave the state its Spanish motto, 'Oro y Plata'.

Which earlier nickname did Nebraska's football team drop when it became the 'Cornhuskers' around 1900?

Bugeaters gave way when Lincoln sportswriter Cy Sherman coined 'Cornhuskers' for the team; the name stuck so well that in 1945 the legislature made Nebraska the Cornhusker State.

Nevada's 'Battle Born State' nickname refers to its admission to the Union during which conflict?

American Civil War battles were still raging when Nevada, its mailed copies overdue, telegraphed its entire constitution to Washington in 1864 and became a state eight days before Lincoln faced re-election.

Which state is nicknamed the Granite State?

New Hampshire's best-known granite was the Old Man of the Mountain, ledges in Franconia Notch that lined up into a man's profile; it is on the state quarter, though the rock itself collapsed in 2003.

Abraham Browning reputedly coined 'Garden State' in 1876 by comparing New Jersey to what?

A barrel open at both ends was Browning's image at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia: New Jersey was full of good things, with New Yorkers grabbing from one end and Pennsylvanians from the other.

Which state is the 'Land of Enchantment'?

New Mexico first stamped 'Land of Enchantment' on its plates in 1941, and they now read 'New Mexico USA', fitting for a state whose own magazine runs a column called 'One of Our 50 Is Missing'.

Which state is nicknamed the Empire State?

New York's nickname has no known author: one story credits George Washington, who called the state 'the seat of the Empire', and the Empire State Building took its name from the nickname, not the other way round.

North Carolina's 'Tar Heel' nickname comes from its trade in tar, pitch and which other pine-forest product?

Turpentine, tar and pitch were the state's early exports; Civil War stories have its soldiers owning the taunt, saying the tar on their heels made them stick in a fight while other troops slipped to the rear.

The Wright brothers built their Flyer in Dayton, so which state claims 'Birthplace of Aviation'?

Ohio put 'Birthplace of Aviation' on its license plates in the late 1990s, staking its claim against North Carolina, whose plates had said 'First in Flight' since the early 1980s for the takeoff at Kitty Hawk.

North Dakota's 'Peace Garden State' nickname refers to a park on its border with which Canadian province?

Manitoba and North Dakota share the 2,339-acre garden, conceived in 1928 by Ontario's Dr Henry Moore as a place to celebrate friendship across a border; some 50,000 people came to its dedication in 1932.

Which state's 'Sooner' nickname recalls settlers who slipped into the Unassigned Lands ahead of the 1889 land run?

Oklahoma's law-abiding settlers despised the 'sooners' who crossed early to grab the best claims, yet within a few decades the insult for cheats had become the whole state's proud nickname.

Which state is nicknamed the Beaver State?

Oregon flies the only state flag with a different design on each side, and the back is a golden beaver, a nod to the fur trade that had trapped the animal close to extinction there by the late 1800s.

Which state is the Keystone State?

Pennsylvania was toasted as 'the keystone in the federal union' at a Jefferson victory rally in 1802; a keystone is the central wedge that locks an arch, and the state sat midway along the thirteen originals.

Which state is nicknamed the Ocean State?

Rhode Island is the smallest state, about 48 miles long and 37 wide, yet its bays and inlets give it more than 400 miles of coastline; the nickname was coined to bring in tourists.

South Carolina's palmetto emblem honours a 1776 fort of palmetto logs that withstood a British naval bombardment on which island?

Sullivan's Island's fort of palmetto logs and sand was still unfinished when nine British warships attacked on June 28, 1776; it outlasted them, saved Charleston and was renamed for its commander, William Moultrie.

South Dakota's flag read 'The Sunshine State' until 1992, when the wording changed to honour which landmark?

South Dakota's flag read 'The Sunshine State' around a blazing sun from 1909; in 1992 it swapped the words for 'The Mount Rushmore State', though the sun's rays still circle the seal.

Which state's 'Volunteer State' nickname dates to the rush of men who enlisted for the War of 1812?

Tennessee was asked for fewer than 3,000 men for the war with Mexico in 1846 and some 30,000 came forward, about ten times as many as were wanted, sealing a name first earned under Andrew Jackson.

The single star behind the 'Lone Star State' nickname symbolises Texas's former status as what?

An independent country from 1836, the Republic of Texas first flew a single gold star on plain blue; today's red, white and blue Lone Star flag replaced it in 1839 and outlived the republic, which joined the US in 1845.

Utah's state emblem and nickname come from 'Deseret', which the Book of Mormon says is an ancient word for what?

Honeybee is why Utah is the Beehive State; Brigham Young's settlers proposed a vast state called Deseret in 1849, but Congress created a smaller territory named after the Ute people instead.

Which state's name is essentially its own nickname, 'Green Mountain State', translated into French?

Vermont's Green Mountain Boys, Ethan Allen's militia, formed in 1770 to drive off New York sheriffs and settlers who claimed the land; only later did they turn on the British, seizing Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.

Which state, the birthplace of eight US presidents, is nicknamed the 'Mother of Presidents'?

Virginia supplied four of the first five presidents, but the run dried up: the last of its eight, Woodrow Wilson, was born in Staunton in 1856.

Which state's license plates carry the nickname 'Evergreen State'?

Washington has never made the name official: a Seattle realtor and historian, C.T. Conover, coined it for the state's forests, and it reached the license plates without ever being adopted by law.

Which state is nicknamed the Mountain State?

West Virginia borrowed its other tag, 'Almost Heaven', from 'Take Me Home, Country Roads', yet co-writer Bill Danoff has said the country roads he had in mind were those of his New England childhood.

Wisconsin's 'Badger State' nickname comes from which group of 19th-century workers?

Lead miners, the area's earliest white settlers, would not waste time building houses, so they burrowed into the hillsides for shelter, and their dugouts were likened to badger dens.

Wyoming is called the Equality State because its territorial legislature passed a law in 1869 doing what?

Grant women the vote is what Wyoming's all-male legislature did in 1869, partly for publicity: lawmakers hoped the news would bring settlers, and above all women, to the thinly peopled territory.

Which slogan, borrowed from the American Revolution, appears on the District of Columbia's standard license plates?

Taxation without representation is DC's complaint: residents pay federal taxes yet have no voting member of Congress. Bill Clinton put the plates on the presidential limousines, George W. Bush took them off and Barack Obama restored them.

Which nickname for Puerto Rico appears, in Spanish, on the island's license plates?

Island of Enchantment, 'Isla del Encanto', labels an island whose names traded places: Columbus called it San Juan Bautista and its port became Puerto Rico, 'rich port', until usage swapped the two.

Which state is nicknamed the Nutmeg State?

Connecticut's nickname is said to come from an old tale: its Yankee peddlers supposedly whittled fake nutmegs from wood and sold them to unsuspecting buyers, though the true origin is unknown.

Utah's state quarter, inscribed 'Crossroads of the West', shows the 1869 Golden Spike, which completed what?

The first transcontinental railroad was joined at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869, where Leland Stanford swung at the last spike and missed, yet the telegraph flashed 'done' across the country anyway.

The state nicknamed 'Colorful Colorado' takes its name from a Spanish word for which colour?

Red, 'colorado' in Spanish, described the river's silt-laden water, and in 1861 Congress gave the river's name to the new territory.

Which state is nicknamed the Peach State?

Georgia earned the name in the decades after the Civil War, when its farmers turned from cotton to peaches, yet it now grows fewer of them than California or South Carolina.

Which state is nicknamed the 'Valentine State' because it joined the Union on February 14?

Arizona joined on February 14, 1912, as the last of the 48 contiguous states, after nearly coming in as part of New Mexico: a 1906 act offered the two territories statehood as one, and voters turned it down.

Which future state did critics of its purchase mock as 'Walrussia'?

Alaska's purchase was attacked loudest by Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, yet the Senate approved the $7.2 million treaty by 37 votes to 2.

Thomas Jefferson supposedly likened which state to a diamond, small in size but great in value?

Delaware is also the Blue Hen State: Revolutionary War soldiers from Kent County carried gamecocks said to descend from a famous blue hen, and the men fought so fiercely that they were likened to the birds.

'808 State' is a colloquial nickname for which state, after its telephone area code?

Hawaii shares the tag with a Manchester dance act, but only by coincidence: the band 808 State took its name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine, not from the islands' dialling code.

Which state's license plates carried the slogan 'Midway USA' in the late 1960s?

Kansas holds the geographic centre of the 48 contiguous states, marked by a small stone monument near the town of Lebanon; the centre of all 50 lies far off in South Dakota.

Which state's license plates were once decorated with a codfish?

Massachusetts put a cod on its 1928 plates, the first picture on any of them, and dropped it from cars a year later; the story goes that fishermen blamed a poor catch on a fish drawn swimming away from 'MASS'.

Which state styles itself 'The State of Hockey'?

Minnesota still lost its first NHL team, which moved to Dallas after the 1993 season, and the self-styled hockey state went seven seasons without one before the Wild began play in 2000.

Which state's former official nickname was the 'Tree Planters State'?

Nebraska held the first Arbor Day on April 10, 1872, when settlers short of trees for windbreaks, fuel and shade are estimated to have planted more than a million; the legislature made the name official in 1895.

Tennessee's people were once nicknamed 'Butternuts' after the tan colour of what?

Civil War soldiers' uniforms on the Confederate side were often a brownish tan, dyed with butternut extract or faded from gray, and 'butternut' became slang for a Confederate soldier.

South Carolina's 1930s license plates read 'The Iodine State', advertising produce said to prevent what?

Goitre, a swelling of the thyroid, comes from too little iodine, and the state pushed the claim so hard that Columbia radio station WIS took its call letters from 'Wonderful Iodine State'.

The 'Flickertail State', named for a ground squirrel, is which state?

North Dakota's flickertail is Richardson's ground squirrel, named for the way it flicks or jerks its tail while running and just before it dives into its burrow; the state march is the 'Flickertail March'.

Nevada is the 'Silver State' thanks to which 1859 strike, the first major silver find in US history?

The Comstock Lode first looked like a nuisance: miners washing for gold found a heavy blue mud clogging their rockers, until an assay showed it was rich silver ore.

Which state is known as the Mitten State because of its shape?

Michigan guards the name: when Wisconsin's tourism office used a mitten in its ads in 2011, Michiganders protested that the mitten was theirs.

The 'Pelican State' flag shows a mother pelican feeding her chicks with what?

Her own blood feeds the chicks, an old heraldic pose known as the 'pelican in her piety', and a 2006 law requires the flag to show three drops of it.

Which South American country calls its flag 'The Lone Star' in Spanish, like the 'Lone Star State'?

Chile has flown its single-starred flag since 1817, and its blue square fills only the top corner, whereas the Texan blue runs the full height of the flag.

Which state's license plates first read 'America's Dairyland' in 1940, a nod to its cheesemakers?

Wisconsin made 'America's Dairyland' its official slogan in 1940, and its sports fans answer proudly to 'cheeseheads', foam wedge hats and all.

The 'Nutmeg State' nickname jokingly recalls Yankee peddlers said to sell fake nutmegs made of what?

Wood knobs shaped like the costly spice are the joke behind the name, though its true origin is unknown and sailors bringing home real nutmeg may deserve the credit.

Minnesota's license plates boast of how many lakes, a round figure that falls short of the state's official count?

10,000 is an undercount: the state's natural resources department lists 11,842 lakes of more than ten acres, and early settlers pushed the phrase to tempt newcomers.

Which state's 'First in Flight' plates recall the Wright brothers' flights on its Outer Banks?

North Carolina's coast drew the brothers with its regular breezes and soft sand for landings; they flew at Kill Devil Hills, just outside Kitty Hawk.

Michigan, the 'Great Lakes State', touches four of the five; which lake, the farthest east, lies beyond it?

Ontario is the odd one out, and Michigan's shores on the other four give it the longest freshwater coastline of any state, some 3,288 miles.

California's 'Golden State' nickname, official since 1968, recalls the 1848 gold find at which site?

Sutter's Mill was a half-built sawmill on the American River when James Marshall spotted the flakes; the nickname also nods to the state's fields of golden poppies.

Which official 'popular name' did Hawaii adopt by law in 1959, the year it joined the Union?

The Aloha State borrows the everyday greeting of the Hawaiian language, and the phrase also appears on Hawaii's license plates.

Which flower sits above the seal on the Kansas flag and gives Kansas its state nickname?

Sunflower pride runs deep in Kansas: besides the flag, a separate state banner adopted in 1953 shows nothing but a single bloom on a blue field.

Which state is the 'Pine Tree State', with a greater share of its land under forest than any other?

Maine's state tree is the eastern white pine, and a pine shades the resting moose at the centre of the shield on its flag.

A keystone, the wedge behind the 'Keystone State' nickname, locks the stones in place atop what?

An arch cannot hold itself up until its keystone is dropped into place, and the state has answered to the nickname since at least 1802.

Missouri's nickname 'Gateway to the West' is shared with a 630-foot steel monument in which city?

St. Louis was the jumping-off point for the push across the continent, and its stainless-steel memorial to that westward expansion was completed in 1965.

Massachusetts is the 'Old Colony State' after which settlement, absorbed by its larger neighbour in 1691?

Plymouth, founded by the Mayflower Pilgrims in 1620, kept its own government for seven decades and was long known simply as the Old Colony.

Arizona's flag has a central star the colour of which metal, the source of an older state nickname?

Copper earned Arizona the name 'Copper State' at statehood, when the territory was already out-producing every state in the country.

Which nickname, coined by Alabama's Chamber of Commerce, joined its license plates in the 1950s?

Heart of Dixie reached Alabama's plates in the mid-1950s together with a small heart shape, both demanded by a state law passed in 1951.

Which state, where Trenton and Monmouth were fought, is the 'Crossroads of the American Revolution'?

New Jersey saw so much of the war that the Continental Army twice wintered at Morristown, and its 1999 state quarter carries a shorter form of the title beneath Washington crossing the Delaware.

The 'Mountain State' is the only state wholly within the region named for which mountain range?

Appalachians cover the state from end to end, lifting its average elevation to about 1,500 feet, the highest of any state east of the Mississippi.

Which small state, nearly cut in two by Chesapeake Bay, calls itself 'America in Miniature'?

Maryland runs from sandy ocean dunes through tidal marsh and rolling oak hills to pine-covered mountains, all inside one of the smallest states.

Which state, home to Badlands National Park, was known as the 'Coyote State' before it adopted an official nickname?

South Dakota kept faith with the animal all the same: the coyote is its official state animal, and the University of South Dakota's teams are the Coyotes.

Which state, covering most of the Great Basin, is the 'Sagebrush State' after its state flower?

Nevada also puts two crossed sprays of sagebrush on its flag, and the same scrubland earned it a second nickname, the 'Sage-hen State'.

Which state, home to Hot Springs National Park, became the 'Wonder State' by law in 1923?

Arkansas took the name, its first official nickname, from businessmen promoting its resources, then dropped it thirty years later for lacking popular appeal.

Which bandleader's Blue Grass Boys, named after his home 'Bluegrass State', gave a music genre its name?

Bill Monroe's band set the template for the style: traditionalists treat its line-up of guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo and bass as the only correct one.

Virginia's nickname 'Old Dominion' is credited to which king, grateful for its loyalty in Cromwell's day?

Charles II is said to have granted the title after regaining his throne, and University of Virginia teams are called the Cavaliers after his supporters.

The 'Yellowhammer State' bird, also called the northern flicker, belongs to which bird family?

Woodpeckers they are, though odd ones: flickers do much of their feeding on the ground, and ants alone can make up 45 per cent of their diet.

The 'Palmetto State' flag pairs its palmetto tree with which emblem, taken from its 1775 militia's caps?

A crescent sits in the upper corner, copied from the silver badge on the caps of Colonel William Moultrie's troops, whose blue coats gave the flag its colour.

The 'Beaver State' puts its namesake animal on its flag, the only US state flag with what feature?

Two different sides set it apart: the front carries the shield from the state seal, while a lone gold beaver has the reverse to itself.

Delaware's 'Blue Hen State' nickname recalls Revolutionary War troops who enjoyed which camp pastime?

Cockfighting made the company's gamecocks, said to be the brood of one famous blue hen, so renowned that the men themselves were likened to the birds.

The 'Garden State', for all its rural nickname, leads the fifty states in which measure?

Population density is higher there than anywhere else in the country, and every one of its 21 counties lies inside a metropolitan area.

Which 1939 Steinbeck novel follows 'Okies', as Oklahomans are nicknamed, fleeing the Dust Bowl?

The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize and was filmed by John Ford within a year; 'Okie' had first been applied to migrant farm workers in the mid-1930s.