The Six (Toronto, Canada nickname)
Entry in progress—B.P.
Other Toronto nicknames include “Big Smoke,” “Broadway North,” “Centre of the Universe,” “Hogtown,” “Hollywood North,” “Little Apple.” “Muddy York,” “New York of the North,” “New York Run by the Swiss,” “Queen City,” “T-Dot,” “T.O.” and “Toronto the Good.”
Wikipedia: Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada’s most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
Wikipedia: Name of Toronto
“The Six” (also written as “The 6” or “The 6ix”), popularized in 2015 by Toronto-born musician Drake with his mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and 2016 album Views. Drake himself credits Toronto rapper Jimmy Prime with inventing the term, but it was used by other Toronto rappers in the early 2000s, in songs such as Baby Blue Soundcrew’s “Love ‘Em All”. The usage of the nickname in many of Drake’s songs has since brought it to global attention. While the meaning of the term was initially unclear, Drake clarified in a 2016 interview by Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that it derived from the shared digits of the 416 and 647 telephone area codes and the six municipalities that amalgamated into the current Toronto city proper in 1998.
Twitter
Rjay Egar
@Rjaaaay
The six. #416 #cntower #toronto http://instagram.com/p/mNmNs4jwW4/
11:44 AM - 31 Mar 2014
Twitter
Ferreira
@KingFerreira_
-The Six- produced by @iamhollywoodpro dropping soon #416 #toronto #tdot #Twenty80 http://instagram.com/p/o_rBHio-nu/
3:30 PM - 8 Jun 2014
Twitter
FUXWITHIT
@fuxwithitblog
@Drake announces his fourth album “Views From The 6” slated for Spring 2015. #OVO #Toronto #6ix
10:55 AM - 15 Jul 2014
Maclean’s
Toronto the Good? More like Toronto the fickle
As the backlash against Drake’s new nickname for the city reminds us, Toronto can be capricious with its affection for its homegrown talents
by Adrian Lee Jul 22, 2014
This is why we can’t have nice things. In July, Drake’s label announced a slew of release dates for its artists, including the title of the upcoming fourth album from Toronto’s most famous rapper, Views from the 6. On its own, this was buzzworthy, but little more; Drake has only begun the recording sessions for the album, which follows up on 2013’s Polaris-nominated Nothing Was the Same. But it touched off debate for what “the 6” meant. Likely, this moniker for his city comes from the fact that the number six appears in both of downtown Toronto’s area codes (416 and 647); alternatively, perhaps Drake is an amateur historian, and is paying homage to the fact that in 1998, the megacity we know now as Toronto know was amalgamated from the six municipalities that made up Metropolitan Toronto.
Twitter
Graham Sutton
@ggrahamssutton
If you ever refer Toronto to the “six” or the “416” chances are i hate you
1:32 PM - 2 Jan 2015
Twitter
Primo Ross
@PrimoSolo
Replying to @alalehs
@alalehs Drake calls Toronto “the six/6ix” so now a lot of people do
11:15 PM - 10 Jan 2015
Twitter
Alexander Cohen
@alexanderecohen
Replying to @blogTO
Six million in the six RT @blogTO: Population of #Toronto area over 6 million for first time (new link!)
11:05 AM - 12 Feb 2015
Twitter
NIKKI BENZ
@nikkibenz
6 or The Six or The 6 is slang for Toronto. Now u know. Smh
6:59 PM - 2 Mar 2015
Urban Dictionary
The Six
The Six represents the city of Toronto, and originates from how Toronto is made up of the 6 former cities/boroughs of Toronto, North York, Scarborough, York and Etobicoke, and East York. Many people assume The Six comes from Toronto’s area codes 416 and 647.
Views from the Six
#six#6ix#the six#the 6ix#toronto#drake#drizzy#416#647#canada#views from the six
by @parmveeer March 30, 2015
Billboard
Drake Announces Fourth Album: ‘Views From The 6’ (Exclusive)
7/15/2014 by Andrew Hampp
(...)
As for Drake’s new album, it’s not entirely clear what “The 6” is, though a recent online hoax would suggest it’s a reference to his hometown. Shortly after April Fool’s this spring, pictures of fake Toronto billboards supposedly planted by Drake started cropping up, and got picked up by magazine and sites like Complex and HotNewHipHop. One of them was emblazoned with the number 6, while another read “T6r6nt6 – 416 The Six 647,” shouting out the city’s two most prominent area codes. Drake fan site Word on Road ultimately shot the veracity of the billboards’ existence down, but chances are “Views From the 6” are as much of a hometown shout-out as Jennifer Lopez’s Bronx-repping “On The 6” was back in ’99.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON)
We The 6: Why the name Drake gave us is here to stay
JOSH MCCONNELL
PUBLISHED JULY 10, 2015
UPDATED JUNE 5, 2017
(...)
To be fair, Drake admits he didn’t come up with the nickname. He gave credit to its alleged creator by way of a hashtag – “#JimmyPrimeNamedIt” – on Instagram. (Jimmy Prime is a Toronto rapper with Drake ties.)
As for the meaning of The 6, that is still up for debate. Early speculation pointed to the city’s area codes – 416 and 647. The other theory gaining credibility involves the 1998 amalgamation of Toronto, when the six different boroughs – Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York, East York and Toronto – became one city.
Urban Dictionary
The Six
The knick name for the city of Toronto.
Contrary to popular belief, the reason Toronto is called the six has nothing to do with area codes, or the number of boroughs that made up the city.
Jimmy Prime (local Toronto rapper) coined the phrase “The Six” because of how the CN tower next to the Sky Dome (Rogers Centre) looks like a 6.
Drake purchased the naming rights off of Jimmy.
The six side raised me.
by tuscanleather September 13, 2017
(...)
This month marks the anniversary of rapper Drake officially declaring a new nickname for his hometown. It came in the way of a July 14, 2014, announcement of the title of his yet-to-be-released new album: Views from the 6.