A demonym (; ) or gentilic () is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place. Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, state, country, continent, planet, and beyond). Demonyms are used to designate all people (the general population) of a particular place, regardless of ethnic, linguistic, religious or other cultural differences that may exist within the population of that place. Examples of demonyms include ''Cochabambino'', for someone from the city of Cochabamba; French for a person from France; and ''

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

'', for a person of the Swahili coast. As a sub-field of anthroponymy, the study of demonyms is called ''demonymy'' or ''demonymics''. Since they are referring to territorially defined groups of people, demonyms are semantically different from ethnonyms (names of

ethnic groups An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history ...

). In the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

, there are many

polysemic Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...

words that have several meanings (including demonymic and ethnonymic uses), and therefore a particular use of any such word depends on the context. For example, the word ''Thai'' may be used as a demonym, designating any inhabitant of

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

, while the same word may also be used as an ethnonym, designating members of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms. For example, a native of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

may be called a '' British person'', a ''Briton'' or, informally, a ''Brit''. Some demonyms may have several meanings. For example, the demonym ''Macedonians'' may refer to the population of

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

, or more generally to the entire population of the region of Macedonia, a portion of which is in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

. 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'', ''Québécoise (female)'' is commonly used in English for a native of the province or city of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

(though ''Quebecer'', ''Quebecker'' are also available). In English, demonyms are always

capitalized Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (British English) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term a ...

. Often, demonyms are the same as the adjectival form of the place, e.g. ''Egyptian'', '' Japanese'', or ''

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''. English commonly uses national demonyms such as ''Ethiopian'' or ''Guatemalan'', while the usage of local demonyms such as ''

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

an'', '' Okie'' or ''

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

ian'' is less common. 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 A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

is simply the name of the place, treated as an adjective; for instance, '' Kennewick Man'' or ''

Kentucky State Police The Kentucky State Police (KSP) is a department of the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, and the official State Police force of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, responsible for statewide law enforcement. The department was founded in 194 ...

''.

Etymology

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widel ...

'' attributes the term ''demonym'' to

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...

editor

Paul Dickson Paul Dickson may refer to: *Paul Dickson (writer) (born 1939), American writer *Paul Dickson (American football) Paul Serafin Dickson (February 26, 1937 – June 7, 2011) was an American football defensive tackle in the National Football League ...

in a 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'' (the first edition of ''Labels for Locals'') Dickson attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his ''Names' Names: A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon'' (1988), which is apparently where the term first appears. The term may have been fashioned after ''demonymic'', which the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'' defines as the name of an

Athenian Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...

citizen according to the

deme In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Classical Athens, Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th ...

to which the citizen belongs, with its first use traced to 1893.

Suffixation

Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the

. The most common is to add a

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...

to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. These may resemble

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in the ...

Semitic Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta. Semitic may also refer to: Religions * Abrahamic religions ** ...

, Celtic, or Germanic suffixes, such as ''-(a)n'', ''-ian'', ''-anian'', ''-nian'', ''-in(e)'', ''-a(ñ/n)o/a'', ''-e(ñ/n)o/a'', ''-i(ñ/n)o/a'', ''-ite'', ''-(e)r'', ''-(i)sh'', ''-ene'', ''-ensian'', ''-ard'', ''-ese'', ''-nese'', ''-lese'', ''-i(e)'', ''-i(ya)'', ''-iot'', ''-iote'', ''-k'', ''-asque'', ''-(we)gian'', ''-onian'', ''-vian'', ''-ois(e)'', or ''-ais(e)''.

Prefixation

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 (Viti being the Fijian name for Fiji). On a country level: *

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kal ...

→ Motswana (singular), Batswana (plural) * Burundi → Umurundi (singular), Abarundi (plural) * Eswatini → Liswati (singular), Emaswati (plural) *

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked country, landlocked as an Enclave and exclave, enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the Thabana Ntlenyana, highest mountains in Sou ...

→ Mosotho (singular), Basotho (plural)

Non-standard examples

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. In the United States such demonyms frequently become associated with regional pride such as the burqueño of Albuquerque, or with the mascots of intercollegiate sports teams of the state university system, take for example the sooner of

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

and the Oklahoma Sooners.

Ethnonyms

Since names of places, regions and countries ( toponyms) are morphologically often related to names of ethnic groups ( ethnonyms), various ethnonyms may have similar, but not always identical, forms as terms for general population of those places, regions or countries (demonyms).

Fiction

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 (credited to scientist Percival Lowell), ''Gondorian'' for the people of Tolkien's fictional land of Gondor, and ''Atlantean'' for

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...

's island Atlantis. Other science fiction examples include '' Jovian'' for those of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...

or its moons and '' Venusian'' for those of Venus. Fictional aliens refer to the inhabitants of Earth as ''

Earthling Earthling or Earthlings may refer to: Film and television * ''Earthling'' (film), a 2010 sci-fi film * ''Earthlings'' (film), a 2005 animal rights documentary * ''The Earthling'', a 1980 drama film * "Earthling" (''Fringe''), a 2009 TV episode ...

'' (from the diminutive ''-ling'', ultimately from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period la ...

''-ing'' meaning "descendant"), as well as ''

Terran Terran or Terrans may also refer to: Fictional entities Literature * Terran Federation (''Starship Troopers'') * Terran Trade Authority universe of Stewart Cowley * Terran Empire in the books of Poul Anderson Television * Terran Federa ...

'', ''Terrene'', ''Tellurian'', ''Earther'', ''Earthican'', ''Terrestrial'', and ''Solarian'' (from ''Sol'', the sun). 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 Lilliput may refer to: Geography * Lilliput (townland), a townland in County Westmeath, Ireland * Lilliput, Dorset, a district in the town of Poole in Dorset, United Kingdom * Lilliput Glacier, the smallest named glacier in the Sierra Nevada of C ...

and Brobdingnag in the satire '' Gulliver's Travels''. In a few cases, where a linguistic background has been constructed, non-standard gentilics are formed (or the eponyms back-formed). Examples include Tolkien's ''

Rohirrim Rohan is a fictional kingdom of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. Known for its horsemen, the Rohirrim, Rohan provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Its territory is mainly grassland. The Rohirrim call their land the Ma ...

'' (from Rohan), the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' franchise's ''

Klingon The Klingons ( ; Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a fictional species in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the original ''Star Trek'' (''TOS'') series, Klingons were swarthy humanoids c ...

s'' (with various names for their homeworld), and the Sangheili from the ''

Halo Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to: * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Video games * Halo (franchise), ...

'' franchise, (also known as Elites in the game by humans, as well as players) named after their homeworld o
Sanghelios

Notes

References

Sources

* *

External links

www.geography-site.co.uk
Alphabetical list of world demonyms.
www.everything2.com
Demonyms of the World.
www.peoplefrom.co.uk
Demonyms of the United Kingdom. {{Ethnicity Semantics Types of words