12 Signs You’ve Been in Georgia Long Enough to Call It Home

Moving to Georgia doesn’t make you a local overnight.

Then one day you catch yourself giving directions the way Georgians do, and you realize something’s changed.

Here are the signs you’ve officially become a Georgian.

1. Waffle House Loyalty

Waffle House began with a small diner that opened in Avondale Estates on Sept. 5, 1955, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

That first diner is preserved as the Waffle House Museum.

Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency adopted the “Waffle House Index” as an informal measure of disaster severity.

If you have a go-to Waffle House order, you’re in good company with many others.

2. ITP and OTP

Atlanta Magazine calls Interstate 285, the 64-mile Perimeter, the symbolic border between the suburbs and the city.

That border is why people say ITP, for inside the Perimeter, and OTP, for outside it.

On the inner loop or the outer loop, you could be heading north, south, east, or west, depending on where you are.

If you say you live ITP or OTP, you’re naming which side of the Perimeter you’re on.

3. Remembering the Sunday Alcohol Ban

Georgia was the last southern state with a blue law banning Sunday alcohol sales, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill in 2011 that let communities vote for the first time on Sunday alcohol sales at convenience and package stores.

If you remember the ban, you’ve been in Georgia a while.

4. Peachtree Directions

If you tell someone to meet you on Peachtree, which street do you mean?

Metro Atlanta has about 71 streets with Peachtree in the name, by an Atlanta Regional Commission count that Atlanta Magazine cited.

That count was several years old in 2022.

A commission spokesperson said the agency doesn’t keep a running list.

West Peachtree Street, for one, is a separate street that runs parallel to Peachtree Street.

Add a cross street.

5. Vidalia Onion Name

The Vidalia Onion Act of 1986 defined the 20 Georgia counties where Vidalia onions could be grown, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

The Vidalia sweet onion became Georgia’s official state vegetable in 1990.

In 1992, the state of Georgia became the owner of the Vidalia onion trademark.

If you wait for Vidalia season, you’re waiting on onions that mature from mid-April to mid-June.

6. Checking the Pollen Count

Atlanta Allergy & Asthma measured a pollen count of 14,801 on March 29, 2025, the highest the practice has documented.

Tree pollen from oak, pine, sycamore, sweet gum, and birch largely drove the spike.

If you want the day’s number, the practice posts a daily pollen report on its website.

Check it before you plan the weekend.

7. HOPE Scholarship Ties

HOPE stands for Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally, and the Georgia Lottery for Education funds the scholarship, according to the Georgia Student Finance Commission.

The program has awarded over $15 billion to more than 2.1 million Georgia students since 1993, as of July 2024.

Gov. Zell Miller oversaw the program’s creation, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

If you know someone who went to college on HOPE, you know one of those 2.1 million students.

8. Gold Dome Talk

The Georgia Recorder described lawmakers, lobbyists, and everyday citizens flocking to the Gold Dome when the 2026 legislative session began on Jan. 12.

The nickname refers to the Capitol dome’s gold leaf, which came from Dahlonega-area citizens in 1958.

The first gilding didn’t last.

Almost half of the gold was gone by 1977, and the dome was regilded by 1981.

When you hear the Gold Dome on the news, you know it means the Capitol.

9. Pronouncing Place Names

DeKalb County is “duh-CAB,” according to Atlanta Magazine, not “duh-CAULB.”

Houston County, a mid-state county, is “HOW-stun,” and Taliaferro County rhymes with Oliver.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution lists Cairo, commonly pronounced “Kay-row,” and Dahlonega, commonly “Duh-LAW-na-ga,” among Georgia’s hard-to-pronounce town names.

If “Kay-row” no longer sounds odd to you, you’ve picked up the local pronunciations.

10. Coca-Cola Roots

Coca-Cola began in Atlanta in 1886, when John Stith Pemberton sold the first glass at Jacobs Pharmacy, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Pemberton was born in Knoxville, Georgia, in 1831.

His partner Frank M. Robinson coined and trademarked the name Coca-Cola.

If you say Coke for any soda, you’re doing what many other people do.

11. Sanford Stadium Hedges

Chinese privet hedges have framed the field at Sanford Stadium in Athens since 1929, according to The Red & Black.

The hedges, and a little-known metal fence inside them, have also worked as crowd control.

Sanford Stadium was the venue for the 1996 Olympic soccer matches, so the hedges came out and cuttings from the originals went back in afterward.

If you’ve watched a Bulldogs home game on TV, you’ve probably seen the hedges.

The Oct. 31 Florida game won’t be played at Sanford Stadium.

WSB-TV reported in June that the Jaguars’ stadium is undergoing a renovation, so the game moved to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

12. Peach State Nickname

If you trace the nickname back, the first Georgia peaches shipped to the New York market between 1858 and 1860.

The state earned the Peach State nickname in the three decades after the Civil War.

In 1870, Marshallville grower Samuel H. Rumph discovered the Elberta peach and named it for his wife.