Demonym


A demonym
or gentilic
is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, usually derived from the name of the place or that of an ethnic group. As a sub-field of anthroponymy, the study of demonyms is called demonymy or demonymics. Examples of demonyms include Cochabambino, for someone from the city of Cochabamba; American for a person from the country called the United States of America; and Swahili, for a person of the Swahili coast.
Demonyms do not always clearly distinguish place of origin or ethnicity from place of residence or citizenship, and many demonyms overlap with the ethnonym for the ethnically dominant group of a region. Thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms. For example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Briton or, informally, a Brit. In some languages, a demonym may be borrowed from another language as a nickname or descriptive adjective for a group of people: for example, "Québécois" is commonly used in English for a native of Quebec.
In English, demonyms are always capitalized. Often, they are the same as the adjectival form of the place, e.g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek, though significant exceptions exist; for instance, the adjectival form of Spain is "Spanish", but the demonym is "Spaniards ".
English commonly uses national demonyms such as "Ethiopian" or "Guatemalan", but the usage of local demonyms such as "Chicagoan", "Okie", or "Parisian", is rare. Many local demonyms are rarely used and many places, especially smaller towns and cities, lack a commonly used and accepted demonym altogether.
Often, in practice, the demonym for states, provinces or cities is simply the name of the place, treated as an adjective; for instance, Kennewick Man, Saskatchewan Open, and, but Russian olive, the Australian Open, and Chinese checkers.

Etymology

National Geographic attributes the term "demonym" to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990. The word did not appear for nouns, adjectives, and verbs derived from geographical names in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary nor in prominent style manuals such as the Chicago Manual of Style. It was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From...? A Dictionary of Resident Names Dickson attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names' Names: A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. The term may have been fashioned after demonymic, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as the name of an Athenian citizen according to the deme to which the citizen belongs, with its first use traced to 1893.

List of adjectival and demonymic forms for countries and nations

List of adjectivals and demonyms for cities

Suffixation

Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language. The most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. These may resemble Late Latin, Semitic, Celtic, or Germanic suffixes, such as:

''-(a)n''

Continents and regions

States and provinces

Cities

''-ian''

Countries

States, provinces, counties, and cities

''-anian''

as adaptations from the standard Spanish suffix -eo

Countries and regions

''-(e)r''

Often used for European locations and Canadian locations

''-(i)sh''

"-ish" is usually proper only as an adjective. See note below list.

''-ien''

Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations.

''-ensian''

"-ese" is usually considered proper only as an adjective, or to refer to the entirety. Thus, "a Chinese person" is used rather than "a Chinese". Often used for Italian and East Asian, from the Italian suffix -ese, which is originally from the Latin adjectival ending -ensis, designating origin from a place: thus Hispaniensis, Danensis, etc. The use in demonyms for Francophone locations is motivated by the similar-sounding French suffix -ais, which is at least in part a relative.

''-i(e) or -i(ya)''

Countries

States, provinces, counties, and cities

Mostly for Middle Eastern and South Asian locales. -i is encountered also in Latinate names for the various people that ancient Romans encountered. -ie is rather used for English places.

''-ic''

Used especially for Greek locations. Backformation from Cypriot, itself based in Greek -ώτης.

''-k''

Often used for French locations.

''-(we)gian''

Often used for British and Irish locations.

''-vian''

While derived from French, these are also official demonyms in English.

From Latin or Latinization

It is much rarer to find Demonyms created with a prefix. Mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of a particular ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, and the language, Kiluba or Tshiluba. Similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti. On a country level:
In the Pacific, at least two countries use prefixation:
Demonyms may also not conform to the underlying naming of a particular place, but instead arise out of historical or cultural particularities that become associated with its denizens. These demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the intercollegiate sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed.

Formal

Literature and science fiction have created a wealth of gentilics that are not directly associated with a cultural group. These will typically be formed using the standard models above. Examples include Martian for hypothetical people of Mars or Gondorian for the people of Tolkien's fictional land of Gondor or Atlantean for Plato's island Atlantis.
Other science fiction examples include Jovian for those of Jupiter or its moons, and Venusian for those of Venus. Fictional aliens refer to the inhabitants of Earth as Earthling, as well as "", "Terrene", "Tellurian", "Earther", "Earthican", "Terrestrial", and "Solarian".
Fantasy literature which involves other worlds or other lands also has a rich supply of gentilics. Examples include Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians, from the islands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag in the satire Gulliver's Travels.
In a few cases, where a linguistic background has been created, non-standard gentilics are formed. Examples include Tolkien's Rohirrim and the Star Trek franchise's Klingons.