By Melissa Mohr Correspondent
What do you call a person from London? A Londoner. How about someone from Alaska? An Alaskan. I vividly remember my childhood confusion when I found out that people from my home state were not Wisconsiners or Wisconsonians but Wisconsinites. These are
demonyms, words “used to denote a person who inhabits or is native to a particular place,” according to Merriam-Webster. Sometimes they are obvious, formed according to a set of rough rules, but other times they are almost impossible to guess.
Demonym comes from the Greek
demos (“people”) and
-onym (“name”). Though it sounds like an ancient word, it was coined in 1990 by Paul Dickson and popularized in his wonderful book “Labels for Locals: What to Call People From Abilene to Zimbabwe.” Mr. Dickson identifies a few guidelines. The safest thing is to try to make the demonym end in