How Do You Come Up With Demonyms?

[Xeko]

A Demonym is a word used to describe someone or something from a specific place. People from America are "American", for example. In nearly every instance, a demonym is formed by adding or removing letters from the end of the name of the country or region that the demonym refers to. But, even in the real world, there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason why certain suffixes are used over others. Someone can be Japanese or Canadian or Iraqi or English or Arabic or Utahn or a New Yorker or an Isrealite. And of course, we are all Earthlings. Of course, in some cases, there's no suffix at all. A person from Brussels is called A Brussel, and a person from Afghanistan is an Afghan. And then you get words like French or Welsh. It's all very confusing.

My question is this, for any linguistics experts out there, is there any unspoken rules indicating what suffix to use when? Like, if a new country was formed on Earth tomorrow, what would we call people from that country? And, how would that apply to the fictional worlds and lands we use in Dungeons and Dragons? Is a person from Elturgard an Elturgardian? Because that sounds really dumb. Is a person from Calimshan a Calim****e? Because that sounds inappropriate. Is someone from Cormyr a Cormi? Because that sounds almost like a slur. I know, I know, the obvious answer is "it's whatever the DM says it is", but that answer is boring. I was hoping to pick people's brains and see if there were any codified rules regarding these things, and if not, we could at least make a sort of list of generally accepted demonyms. I have seen Baldurian, for example, in officially published material, referring to citizens of Baldur's Gate. But what else is there?

[Amnestic]

In the case of existing FR locations like the ones you've mentioned, the FR wiki has a bunch of demonyms listed - the Calimshan one you've had to censor is a canon one, along with "Calimshanite".
Cormyr has Cormyrean, Cormyrian, and Cormyte.

[DarknessEternal]

If you're a human, whatever your father's job was.

Baker, Cobbler, etc.

[Psyren]

My question is this, for any linguistics experts out there, is there any unspoken rules indicating what suffix to use when?

Are there any you're unsure about in particular?

I'm sure there are linguistic rules like this, and that they can be learned and conveyed - but I think that more straightforwardly, most of these settings have been around for decades*, and have had volumes of novels, blogs, modules, sourcebooks, spinoff games and many other media created about them in that time. Many of these media contain these demonyms for just about every location in these settings.

Even if you think you haven't seen the demonym for a particular place in a given long-running setting - I can almost guarantee you have at some point, and your subconscious stored the information even if your conscious mind didn't, surfacing it only when you needed to think/write about Baldurians or Lantanese or Qualinesti etc. for some reason.

*Outside of these long-running settings - the only truly new settings published for D&D in more recent times have been MTG settings that got converted from that game, e.g. Strixhaven or Theros. And for the most part, I'd wager people interested in those settings will be interested enough to check MTG flavor text/novels/etc for such demonyms too.

[Kane0]

is there any unspoken rules indicating what suffix to use when?

In my experience, whatever causes the most arguments regarding pronunciation.

[Dualight]

If you're a human, whatever your father's job was.

Baker, Cobbler, etc.

Those are patronymics. And those are usually [father's name](+ a suffix or declension to denote that it is a patronymic) Ex.: 'Johnson' for someone who's father was called 'John'
Family naming habits are of interest when constructing a culture, but not what OP is asking for.

[Silly Name]

My question is this, for any linguistics experts out there, is there any unspoken rules indicating what suffix to use when?

The problem is that whatever rules there are, they are dependent on the language you speak - but, unless you're using only exonyms, you're likely also using people's own endonym, which follow different rules from your language. And people aren't always named after the country they inhabit. Sometimes it's the inverse, other times a older demonym has persisted even after the country has changed its name.

For example, you noted how people from Afghanistan are called "Afghan". That's because "Afghanistan" means "Land of the Afghans" (the -stan suffix means "land of/place of"). So in this case it's the country that is named after the people.

Other times, a demonym has been around so long it has been subject to linguistic shift: the French were originally the Franks, and their kingdom was the Kingdom of the Franks, which then started getting called "Francia", from which modern English "France" is derived. And in French, Germany is still called "Allemagne", whereas the Germans call themselves "Deutsch", and their country "Deutschland". And in Italian that country is called "Germania", but the people are called "Tedeschi", because Italians use the old Latin name for the region, but use a very italianised spelling of "Deutsch" to refer to the people!

[Psyren]

The problem is that whatever rules there are, they are dependent on the language you speak - but, unless you're using only exonyms, you're likely also using people's own endonym, which follow different rules from your language. And people aren't always named after the country they inhabit. Sometimes it's the inverse, other times a older demonym has persisted even after the country has changed its name.

For example, you noted how people from Afghanistan are called "Afghan". That's because "Afghanistan" means "Land of the Afghans" (the -stan suffix means "land of/place of"). So in this case it's the country that is named after the people.

Other times, a demonym has been around so long it has been subject to linguistic shift: the French were originally the Franks, and their kingdom was the Kingdom of the Franks, which then started getting called "Francia", from which modern English "France" is derived. And in French, Germany is still called "Allemagne", whereas the Germans call themselves "Deutsch", and their country "Deutschland". And in Italian that country is called "Germania", but the people are called "Tedeschi", because Italians use the old Latin name for the region, but use a very italianised spelling of "Deutsch" to refer to the people!

This is actually a nice advantage D&D settings have over our world - most of them have a single universally-adopted "Common" or "Trade" tongue that sidesteps this sort of thing. No need to worry about Germans vs. Deutsch/Doitsunin vs. Allemands etc; even if the people of X refer to themselves by a different name, there is always a common version that everyone (including them) can be counted on knowing and regularly using.

[Sigreid]

I think it's basically some person or group takes a stab at the one they think sounds best and if it catches on, that's what it becomes. I know the names of groups of animals (senate of owls etc.) Was basically a group of academics trying to be clever and amuse eachother.

[Trask]

It's a good question, some names for fantasy realms can be strange. What is someone from Waterdeep called? It's Waterdhavian, which is totally made up, but sounds real.

Another thing you can do, which I like better sometimes, is to think of the race's name rather than the place. Elder Scrolls does this, the Nords of Skyrim, the Bretons of High Rock, the Redguards of Hammerfell, rather than the Skyrimians, High Rockites, and Hammerfellese.

[Psyren]

It's a good question, some names for fantasy realms can be strange. What is someone from Waterdeep called? It's Waterdhavian, which is totally made up, but sounds real.

The justification I read once (I forget exactly where) is that Greenwood may not have liked the sound of "Waterdeepian" and instead went through a bunch of Water-prefix demonyms looking for something better, eventually landing on Waterloo (Waterluvian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym#-vian))

[Trask]

The justification I read once (I forget exactly where) is that Greenwood may not have liked the sound of "Waterdeepian" and instead went through a bunch of Water-prefix demonyms looking for something better, eventually landing on Waterloo (Waterluvian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym#-vian))

That makes sense. I take it back then, not completely made up.

[Oramac]

I think it's basically some person or group takes a stab at the one they think sounds best and if it catches on, that's what it becomes.

This would be my guess as well.

I know in my homebrew world, people from the Kovair Republic are "Kovarian", people from the Kingdom of Qena are "Qenan", and people from the Commonwealth of Ashana are "Ashani".

Why? Because those are what sounded best to me when I wrote it. /shrug

[firelistener]

And in French, Germany is still called "Allemagne", whereas the Germans call themselves "Deutsch", and their country "Deutschland". And in Italian that country is called "Germania", but the people are called "Tedeschi", because Italians use the old Latin name for the region, but use a very italianised spelling of "Deutsch" to refer to the people!

It always made me chuckle when learning Russian that the traditional word for Germany and Germans was "Nimetz" and "Nimetzki", respectively. The terms come from an old slavic word for foreigner... which in turn also was the word for "mute". That is, they encountered people who "couldn't speak" their language and referred to them thusly. I don't know if it's still used a lot,and probably not considered proper, but a Muscovite (hey, there's another one) insisted to me that it was what most average people used colloquially about a decade ago.

So some demonyms are even a bit silly in origin :smallsmile:

[Kane0]

It always made me chuckle when learning Russian that the traditional word for Germany and Germans was "Nimetz" and "Nimetzki", respectively. The terms come from an old slavic word for foreigner... which in turn also was the word for "mute". That is, they encountered people who "couldn't speak" their language and referred to them thusly. I don't know if it's still used a lot,and probably not considered proper, but a Muscovite (hey, there's another one) insisted to me that it was what most average people used colloquially about a decade ago.

So some demonyms are even a bit silly in origin :smallsmile:

And of course barbarian, because not-romans talking to romans just sounded like bar bar bar apparently.

[P. G. Macer]

It always made me chuckle when learning Russian that the traditional word for Germany and Germans was "Nimetz" and "Nimetzki", respectively. The terms come from an old slavic word for foreigner... which in turn also was the word for "mute". That is, they encountered people who "couldn't speak" their language and referred to them thusly. I don't know if it's still used a lot,and probably not considered proper, but a Muscovite (hey, there's another one) insisted to me that it was what most average people used colloquially about a decade ago.

So some demonyms are even a bit silly in origin :smallsmile:

The part about foreigners is rather common in European languages; the place name Wales comes from the Old English word for “foreigner” (The Welsh word for Wales is Cymru)—never mind that the Celtic Welsh were present in Britain long before the Germanic Anglo-Saxons!

[RedMage125]

I play it by ear, and go with whatever is aesthetically pleasing.

Example: In my world, there is a continent to the south, ruled by dragons, ancestral home of dragonborn. I started with the German word for dragon, "drakken". Then I just got creative. The empire is referred to as The Drakkensrad. And the adjective for anything or anyone from there is "Drakkensari". There's no cohesive reason, I just like the way the words flow.