Why Lagos is probably called Lasgidi

Las Gidi or simply Gidi is a name commonly
used to refer to the city of Lagos, Nigeria. You
can see it in the names of such organisations as
‘Gidi Lounge’, ‘Gidi Traffic’ and of course your
very own ‘Gidi Business’.
But why Gidi? And how did Lagos come to be
known as ‘Las Gidi’? Like anything historical
and undocumented, there are several
explanations depending on whom you ask.
However, there are two main widely expressed
sources of the name – one being more plausible
than the other.
1. Benin Origin.
It has been claimed that sometimes in the 1970’s
in Benin City, Nigeria, a slang was coined out
of ‘Lagos’ and ‘City’ to form ‘LasGity’. The term
then morphed to ‘Lasgidi’ over time. This is one
plausible explanation of how the term came to be
especially if you consider that most groups of
people and places where named by 3rd parties.
For example, it has been claimed that the
‘Yoruba’ were named such by the Hausa to their
north.
It is also plausible when you consider other
Benin origin slangs for places such as
‘Sapelociti/Sapelocity’ [Sapele], ‘Waffi’ [Warri],
and so on, some of which may or may not have
survived to the present day from the 70’s.
2. Indigenous Origin.
Lagos State, and Lagos city are located
geographically in the part of Nigeria that is
considered ‘Yorubaland’ even though the
population that make up the city, like any large
metropolitan city in the world, consists of persons
from all over the country, continent, and planet.
Therefore along with English and Pidgin
English, Yoruba is the predominant language in
Lagos.
There are at least two sub explanations of how
‘Lasgidi’ or ‘Las Gidi’ has become the nick name
for Lagos.
i. The concatenation of the words ‘Las’ from
‘Lagos’ and ‘Gidi’ the Yoruba word for ‘Real’. In
this case, Lasgidi or Las Gidi would mean
something like ‘the real Lagos’. To understand
the use of the term ‘gidi’ or ‘real’ in this way, a
deeper understanding of the local lingo is
required. The use of the word is similar to the
way it is used in ‘urban’ America in such
expressions as ‘keeping it real’.
ii. Another iteration of this is a bit of a tip of the
hat to Las Vegas. In Yoruba, one of the ways of
putting emphasis on a term is to say it twice. So
saying ‘gidi gidi’ would mean something like
‘Very real’. So life in Lagos is not just real, its very
real, as in, the City of ‘hard knocks’. A trendy
way of putting this then became Las gidi – ‘Las’
being the Spanish plural of ‘The’, such as in ‘Las
Vegas’ [The Vegas] or ‘Las Palmas’ [The palms],
and so on.
So what is the true origin of the term? Nobody
can say for sure, but it is a term that has
gained wide acceptance and is in general use Credit :Gidibusiness ,

If you've got any other reason kindly use the comment box