San Jose is the most Forgettable Major American City, according to data

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What’s that California city again? Starts with “San,” has a million people, near the coast?

Almost everyone can think of San Francisco or San Diego. But San Jose, the nation’s 10th most populous city, just doesn’t jump to mind in the same way.

We know this because nearly half a million people have taken a Sporcle quiz that asks them to name the 100 most populous U.S. cities. Sporcle is a leading provider of brain teasers for procrastinators: Name the 50 states in 10 minutes (a quiz taken more than 15 million times) or the 47 countries of Europe in eight minutes (taken nearly 11 million times).

More than 99 percent of quiz takers name New York as one of the 100 most populous cities, more than any other city. About 90 percent name San Francisco and San Diego. But just two out of three remember San Jose before the allotted 12 minutes is up. That makes it the least named city of any of the 10 most populous ones.1 And people are more likely to remember much smaller cities, such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati. “I always miss San Jose in these quizzes!” one commenter lamented.

It’s not just Sporcle. At our request, Google’s News Lab sent over U.S. search data since 2004 for the 100 Sporcle cities. The data matched Sporcle extremely closely: The more a city is searched, the more it’s recalled on the quiz.2 San Jose ranked 42nd in Google searches.

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