The many names for Edinburgh over the years - from Auld Reekie to the Festival City

But one of the traits which most bamboozles visitors is the sheer number of nicknames locals have for the city.

The Capital boasts a long lineage of great inventions and it is no different in the realm of names.

Here are some of the nicknames the Capital has been adorned with.

Edinburgh is known by a series of nicknames

Auld Reekie

Perhaps Edinburgh’s most recognisable nickname, this one can more or less be understood as a Scots version of ‘the big smoke’. Literally ‘old smoky’, it is thought to have been coined by a Fife laird who watched clouds of smoke emerge from the city’s chimneys by night.

Embra

This affectionate name is most often used by locals and features heavily in the works of Irvine Welsh. Visitors are likely to hear it in some of the city’s more convivial pubs.

Festival City

Owing to the enormous profile of the festivals which take over the city each August, this title is commonly used to market Edinburgh to tourists. It is unclear when it caught on, but it is not well-received by those locals who dread the summer crowds.

Dùn Èideann

The Gaelic name for the Capital has been anglicised to Dunedin, which happens to also be the name of a city in New Zealand. Increasingly, literature about the city emphasises its bilingual history.

Athens of the North

The architectural similarities between the Scottish and Greek capitals have been pointed out by many observers - and some newer city buildings were even modelled on their Athenian equivalents. This nickname can also be considered a nod to the ingenuity of the Scottish Enlightenment and Ancient Greece alike.