I’ve heard this explaination (from wiki) before....

Well, the first one:

The city's nickname Pompey is thought to have derived from the log entry of Portsmouth Point, contracted to "Po'm.P." (Po'rtsmouth P.oint) as ships entered the harbour. Navigational charts use the contraction.[60] However, a historian argues that the name Pompey may have been brought back from a group of Portsmouth-based sailors who visited Pompey's Pillar in Alexandria, Egypt, in around 1781.[61] Another theory is that it is named after the harbour's guardship, Pompee, a 74-gun French battleship captured in 1793.[62]

Posted By: Cheltenham_Canary, Feb 12, 23:18:40