How These Texas City Nicknames Came To Be

Texas has got a ton of cities and some of them have pretty odd names. Many have odd nicknames too.

I wrote an article a while back about some strange town and city names across the lone star state. That got me thinking about the nicknames that some Texas cities have.

Here are the origins of the nicknames for the top 6 cities in Texas ...

1 Bayou City - Houston's "official" alias comes from its many, major waterways; 10 in all.  As a bonus, the war for Texas independence ended beside the Buffalo Bayou.

2 Alamo City - I don't think San Antonio's nickname really requires an explanation but, just in case, San Antonio is where the Alamo is.

3 Big D - Dallas' nickname stems from it's size and affluence. A very popular song from 1956 called "Big D" helped to cement the name in the mind of the public.

4 City of The Violent Crown - Austin's moniker is a mouthful.

5 Big Juicy - Fort Worths' nickname should be "city of nicknames", it's got so many. Cowtown is probably most appropriate but Big Juicy has a better story about a big misunderstanding and a dog. I love dogs.

6 El Chuco - The 915 also has several nicknames. We got Sun City because we get over 300 sunny days per year in the 915. It's hard to say which is more popular, Sun City or El Chuco but I'm going with El Chuco.

Here's one of the many stories behind that one:

... back in the thirties, El Paso was ground zero for a cultural movement in which rambunctious young Mexicans and Mexican Americans who were leery of assimilation found empowerment through acts of social rebellion. - texasmonthly.com

These people were known as "pachucos", which was abbreviated to "Chuco".