According to a new survey, more than half of Americans still refer to the city of San Francisco as "San Fran."
The study was conducted by Bospar, a San Francisco-based Public Relations Firm, where about 1,000 people were surveyed during the month of January.
This is their fourth annual San Francisco Naming Day survey, according to KRON.
They found that 56.5% of Americans still use the term "San Fran" and last year about 59.9% said they used it.
There's another layer to the survey, though.
It revealed that 28.4% of people were aware that locals hate the term 'San Fran' and many of them "like that locals hate it."
However, a whopping 71.6% claimed that they were unaware of local Bay Area residents' reaction to it and upon learning this, 73% said they will stop using it.
According to the survey, people who will continue to say 'San Fran' listed the following reasons:
- 31.9% said “it doesn’t matter anyway”
- 25.5% said they “like that locals hate it”
- 24% said they were “hearing ‘San Fran’ on conservative news programming”
- 18.6% said they preferred it because they “think it’s shorter”
The term isn't just used in casual conversations though. The survey found that these major airlines have been heard using it:
- American Airlines: 11%
- Southwest: 6.4%
- United: 5.6%
- Delta: 4.9%