Gotham City will become an official nickname of New York City if a council member has his way. “Though they never called it New York in any of the Batman movies or the series, Gotham City always was New York,” Council Member Hiram Monserrate said in an interview. “We should ensure that we get the credit for what we are.” Mr. Monserrate said he wants to promote the city as a tie-in with the July release of “The Dark Knight,” the latest film in the Batman series, which will star the late Heath Ledger as the Joker and Christian Bale as Batman. Beyond the potential to attract tourists by associating New York with a blockbuster film, Mr. Monserrate said instituting a city moniker could foster civic pride.

“I think it will help promote a spirit of unity in our city by having an official nickname,” he said.

It is said that the creators of Batman, New Yorkers Bob Kane and Bill Finger, originally intended Gotham City to be a stand-in for New York City, but some say it’s not crystal clear that the Gotham moniker belongs solely to the city. Many of the exterior scenes in the Batman movies are shot in Chicago, and prominently feature several of that city’s landmarks, such as the Board of Trade building, as Bruce Wayne’s corporate headquarters, and the elevated subway line, the site of the first film’s final battle.

Others say the Gotham nickname might do more harm to the city’s image than good. It connotes a grimy, crime-ridden metropolis that might represent New York in the 1980s, they say, but not so much today, with record low crime rates and dozens of shiny glass towers rising across the cityscape.

“One of the Gotham comic book writers once said that Gotham City suggests New York at its most noir-ish. He said it evokes Manhattan below 14th street at 3 a.m. on the darkest, coldest night of November, whereas Superman’s Metropolis puts forth New York’s brighter face — Midtown on a sunny, summer day,” historian Mike Wallace, the author of “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898,” said via e-mail.

Mr. Monserrate said such worries are unfounded. “We have had dark days in our city,” the former police officer said. “But I think what the Batman series always promoted was justice and there was always a good guy who saved the day. Maybe the mayor, the City Council, the NYPD, all of us together save the day ourselves and make this city a great place.” According to Mr. Wallace, the city might do better in looking at Gotham City’s background beyond Batman. The word “Gotham” and its ties to New York go back hundreds of years. Its city connection can be traced to local author Washington Irving, who applied the nickname to New York in a satirical piece in 1807. Irving was mocking the city by referring to a town in England, Gotham, derived from “Goat town,” whose citizens were known as lunatics and fools. “Gotham by itself is therefore a term with a wider range of meanings, and it has ancient roots (so far as New York can be ancient), while Gotham City only dates to the late 1930s,” Mr. Wallace said. “So if you’re nickname hunting, using ‘Gotham’ without ‘City’ might be more appropriate.”