Demonym

As a sub-field of anthroponymy, the analyse 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. In the English language, there are numerous polysemic words that hit several meanings including demonymic and ethnonymic uses, and therefore a particular usage of any such word depends on the context. For example, the word Thai may be used as a demonym, designating any inhabitant of Thailand, 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 multinational demonyms. For example, a native of the United Kingdom 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, or more loosely to the entire population of the region of Macedonia, a significant item of which is in Greece. In some languages, a demonym may be borrowed from another Linguistic communication as a nickname or descriptive adjective for a group of people: for example, Québécois, Québécoise female is normally used in English for a native of the province or city of Quebec though Quebecer, Quebecker are also available.

In English, demonyms are always capitalized.

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

English commonly uses national demonyms such(a) as Ethiopian or Guatemalan, while the ownership of local demonyms such as Chicagoan, Okie or Parisian 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 is simply the name of the place, treated as an adjective; for instance, Kennewick Man or Kentucky State Police.