Demonym

The adjective gentilicio is one that «denotes a relationship with a geographical place», whether by neighborhood, town, city, province, region, country, continent, or any other place or political entity. The adjective demonym can be substantive, that is, it can refer to a person by mentioning him only by his demonym and thus it is possible to correctly say the Bruneian (instead of saying: the Bruneian individual), the German one, etc.

The ordinary demonyms of the Spanish language are formed with a variety of suffixes: -a, -aco, -aíno, -án, -ano, -ar, -arra, -ario, -asco, -ato, -e, -eco, -ego, -enco, -eno, -ense, -eño, -eo, -ero, -és, -esco, -í, -iego, -ín, -ino, -isco, -ita, -o, -ol, -ón, -ota, -tarra, -ú, -uco, -ujo, -uso and -uz —plus their corresponding feminine variants—. Likewise, Spanish recognizes a large number of particular demonyms since, in addition to linguistic foundations, those related to culture, history, tradition and use are equally valid to determine a demonym.

Denominations

In Spanish, the demonyms are written with a lowercase initial. Whether an adjective or a noun, the demonym denotes the origin of people or things, not their residence or location. A person will keep their name no matter where they live. Thus, a Fijian, Kosovar, Lisbon, Salamanca or Bogota will continue to be a Fijian, Kosovar, Lisbon, Salamanca or Bogota respectively, whether they live in Nassau, Venice, Rome or anywhere in the world. However, while it is true that the origin of a person is unalterable, it is also true that there is what can be called the demonym by adoption; that is to say, the demonym that, out of affection, adopts a person who settles in a different place from where she was born. Also, for economy of language, the dominant demonym is used in a place name to designate all the inhabitants of the place.

Hypocoristic

In some cases, to refer to those born in a place, a hypocoristic is used —an affectionate designation— that does not replace the demonym. An example of this is the denomination for the inhabitants of the port of Veracruz (Mexico): jarochos. Some of these hypocoristics were originally pejorative —as in the case of Oaxacans, sometimes called oaxacos, or those from Mexico City, called chilangos or defeños instead of capitalists; however, over time, these hypocoristics acquired the quality of friendly names, which are even used by the inhabitants of the place in a humorous tone. This not only occurs in Mexico but also in other countries, such as the inhabitants of Costa Rica, who instead of Costa Ricans are called ticos, or the inhabitants of Bogotá, who are informally called cachacos or rolos instead of Bogotanos.

Terminology

According to the dictionary of the Spanish language of the Royal Spanish Academy, the word «gentilicio» comes from the Latin gentilitius, a noun that in turn comes from the word, also Latin, gens. For the ancient Romans, the gens was the strain, the lineage, the lineage, one could even say that it is what corresponds to our modern surnames. Thus the gens Iulia was the Julia people, or the family to which, for example, Julius Caesar belonged. Gens was also for the Romans a way of calling what today words like “nation”, “people” or “race” designate. Hence, gens evolved into "gentilicio", a word referring to the inhabitants of a town, a city, a region, a country, a nation or a state.

The demonym is formed with a particular noun, for example «bilbilitano», or —when this does not exist— with the subject followed by the preposition «de» followed by the place name or name of the place from which the origin is to be denoted, for example: "man from Liechtenstein". The formation of the demonym considered from the name of the place presents many cases (both irregular and regular), forming the most common regular ones with the root and suffixes such as -ano, -co, -ense, -eño, -ero, -és or -ino > (with some exceptions, such as "Argive", originally from Argos). There are also suffixes that are especially typical in territories such as Cantabria (-ego/-iego), the Basque Country (-arra) or Mesoamerica (-teco/-teca).

Gender of endings

When using demonyms, their gender must be taken into account. Most endings change with gender (for example, the ending -eño, cacereño for a man and cacereña for a woman); others, on the other hand, have the same form for the feminine and the masculine (for example, the ending -ense: nicaragüense serves to refer to a man or a woman).

In the case of Mexico and Central America, there are demonyms that come from the Nahuatl words tecatl and necatl, and that also use masculine and feminine endings of the language Spanish, as in the case of the inhabitants of Chiapas (chiapaneco, -ca), Guatemala (Guatemalan, -ca) and Yucatán (yucatecan, -ca), and others that use an ending for both sexes, in the same way as in Nahuatl, as Tlaxcala (Tlaxcalteca).

Ethnonymy

The demonyms are generally derived from the current name of the place (from England, «English») but, when a demonym or ethnonym is composed of two or more different demonyms, the last demonym of the series is left in its original form, the radicals of the other components of the series are modified (by adding the suffix "o") and they are all separated by hyphens. For example, an Italian-Russian-American film, example in which American (last term in the series) has not changed while the others have been changed by their radicals ending in "o". In some cases they are derived from an old place-name or ethnonym (from England: anglo-, from Spain: hispano-, from Portugal: luso-, from Japan: nipo-, from China: sino-, etc.). Some examples of demonyms that do not follow the current name of the place may be Alcalá de Henares (Complutense, from Complutum) or Ciudad Rodrigo (Mirobrigense, from Miróbriga).

In the case of the official name of an institution, each ethnonym must begin with a capital letter (for example: Franco-German Institute).