Editing Gotham City (section)

==Origin of name==
In [[Jim Steranko]]'s ''History of the Comics'', writer [[Bill Finger]], on the naming of the city, said, "Originally I was going to call Gotham City '[[Civic City]].' Then I tried 'Capital City,' then '[[Coast City]].' Then I flipped through the New York City phone book and spotted the name 'Gotham Jewelers' and said, 'That's it,' Gotham City. We didn't call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it."<ref name=NYTimes/><ref>{{cite book |author-link=Jim Steranko |last=Steranko |first=Jim |title=The Steranko History of Comics |publisher=Supergraphics |location=Reading, PA |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-517-50188-7 |page=44}}</ref>

"Gotham" has been a [[nicknames of New York City|nickname for New York City]] that first became popular in the 19th century; [[Washington Irving]] had first attached it to New York in the November 11, 1807, edition of his ''[[Salmagundi (periodical)|Salmagundi]]'',<ref name=HistoryOfNYC>Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. ''Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898''. (Oxford University Press, 1999), 417.</ref> a periodical which lampooned New York culture and politics. Irving took the name from the English village of [[Gotham, Nottinghamshire]], which was known for the [[Wise Men of Gotham]] story, a legendary incident where the village's residents feigned idiocy to prevent a royal visit from [[John, King of England]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-got1.htm |title= Gotham |publisher= World Wide Words |date= February 6, 1999 |access-date= July 13, 2011 |archive-date= August 18, 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220818045716/http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-got1.htm |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-24760791 |title=The real Gotham: The village behind the Batman stories |date=January 1, 2014 |last=Lowbridge |first=Caroline |work=BBC News |access-date=June 20, 2015 |archive-date=January 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101181145/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-24760791 |url-status=live }}</ref>