Toronto the Good? Hogtown? YYZ? Birthplace of Drake?

Nope.

When most people refer to this city they call it — wait for it: Toronto.

According to a new Forum Research poll, an overwhelming majority of locals — 75 per cent — invoked the official name when asked what they call this 63,000-hectare space, which butts upon the balmy shores of Lake Ontario.

“We have no idea what people are going to say when we put it out there,” says Lorne Bozinoff, president of Forum Research, the company that conducted the poll.

“It’s impossible to predict.”

Especially when it comes to matters of communal identity, such as this one.

Typically, Bozinoff’s team probes political opinions, about, say, bike lanes or a new city initiative.

But, from time to time, researchers are interested in asking questions that illuminate “what it means to be a resident,” he says.

And this is part of that.

On the heels of discussion at city hall about the Toronto sign in Nathan Phillips Square, Bozinoff’s team chose three Toronto names: Toronto, TO (pronounced Tee-Oh) and The Six, which they’ve seen used by the media recently, and phoned up a random sampling of 864 people.

The older, wealthier and more educated use the city’s proper name, the study suggests, and pronounce each of its three syllables: “Toh-ron-toh.” Those who voted for Doug Ford in the last election or live in North York, often turf that last “toh” and call it “Tronnah.”

Only about 10 per cent of respondents choose TO as their name preference and eight per cent ticked the “other” box, meaning they don’t use any of the three options.

Perhaps the most shocking result — I jest — is that only seven per cent of those polled say they call Toronto “The Six” (or “The6” or “The 6ix”).

Could this mean Drake’s influence is (gasp!) waning?

Not necessarily, says Bozinoff.

When researchers sliced up the poll data, he says, they discovered that age was a big factor in what word people used to talk about Toronto.

Those between 18 and 34 years old, for instance, are much more likely to call it the “6” than, those over age 55. But, he says, as the younger generations ages “we might get more and more people saying ‘The Six.’”

That’s why his team will have to redo the study in a year — to find out if The Six is still relevant, Bozinoff says.

John Tablate, 24, doesn’t know what he might be saying in 2017, but these days when he’s asked where he lives, he sizes up the person talking. If they’re older, more established and have fewer tattoos than he does, he plays it straight, answering: Toronto.

If the asker is young and hip, he whips out “The Six.” “I call it both ways,” he says. “It depends on who I’m talking to.”

High school teacher Brian Campbell, 33, feels the same way. His repertoire of Toronto nicknames is expansive. Sometimes he says TO, other times T-dot. But when he’s addressing new immigrants in his classes, he annunciates well and says Toh-ron-toh. “With an emphasis on the ‘oh,” he says.

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When pressed to the say the word, most people the Star informally polled, also annunciated. But many didn’t even consider the name Toronto when asked what they call this place.

“Home,” says Tannaz Shirazi, who immigrated to Canada from Iran in 1984. Her children Armin, 15, and Nicki, 13, agree and say they call this city “the best place on earth!”

Forum’s poll was conducted between Aug. 8 and 10. Results based on the total sample are considered accurate plus or minus 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Forum houses its poll results in the data library of the University of Toronto political science department.