No, Toronto, Hamilton didn’t “steal” the idea for their new sign from us

No, Toronto, Hamilton didn’t “steal” the idea for their new sign from us

Last week, Hamilton approved a new sign that will sit outside its city hall: eight lit-up letters that spell out HAMILTON. Sound familiar? Toronto’s Twitter world was predictably miffed, accusing the Hammer of ripping off the sign at Nathan Phillips Square. But as is often the case on social media, the facts about this alleged act of plagiarism were a little wobbly. Turns out we weren’t the first city to come up with the genius idea of spelling out our own name. Here’s the proof.

In review, here’s our pride and joy:

Visual by ?: @hey_eh_joe Selected by: @torontotroy #torontoclx Visuals from creatives everywhere. ? A post shared by Torontoclx (@torontoclx) on Jul 16, 2017 at 10:55am PDT

And this is what Hamilton’s will look like:

Of course, we also accused Ottawa of stealing the idea:

Beautiful day in Ottawa with some of our favorite people ?❤️ #sundayfunday #daxrouleau #visitingottawa A post shared by Veronique Shank-Rouleau ? (@vshankrouleau) on Jul 16, 2017 at 2:16pm PDT

Amsterdam’s sign is generally accepted to be the one that started the trend (though, honestly, who knows anymore?):

get the sign ALL by myself ? #unitedjourney #travelersnotebook #travelphotography #amsterdam #travelporn #amsterdamsign A post shared by Chloe M. (@just4chloe) on Jul 18, 2017 at 3:00pm PDT

Lyon didn’t even change the colour scheme:

At least Brisbane got a little creative:

? Fell in love with #Brisbane #comingbacktolivehere #brisbanesign ? #Australia ?? A post shared by Sandra ? (@sandradzepina) on Feb 17, 2017 at 10:57pm PST

Cancún gets extra point for the best backdrop:

Beautiful ~ #cancun #cancunsign #cancúnsign #mexico A post shared by Stacy Liu (@stacyliu1128) on Jul 8, 2017 at 6:49pm PDT

Montevideo’s is pretty lively:

Montevideo, Uruguay. A post shared by Lucas Lessio (@lucaslessio7) on May 12, 2017 at 11:27am PDT

For the Olympics, Rio put up not just one sign:

#cidadeolimpica #boxe #todosnaluta #esporte #pugilismo #everlast #Vidigal A post shared by Joelsilva (@joelsilva150) on Jul 11, 2017 at 6:37am PDT

But two:

Portugal clued in, too:

#sventure ?? A post shared by Simone D'Onofrio (@simone_donofrio) on Jul 19, 2017 at 8:19am PDT

Cincinnati’s had this one for a long time:

We've had this for years pic.twitter.com/nxTEBKUE7e — Houston Crawford (@htown) July 13, 2017

And you may or may not have seen this guy before: