Demonym

The English language uses several strategies to create demonyms. The most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location's name. These include:

• -an or -ian (America -> American)
• -ite (Vancouver -> Vancouverite) (mostly cities)
• -er (London -> Londoner) (mostly cities)
• -ish (Spain -> Spanish) (mostly countries)
• -ese (Taiwan -> Taiwanese, Vienna -> Viennese) (mostly East Asian and Francophone locations, from the similar-sounding French suffix -ais)
• -i (Iraq -> Iraqi) (mostly Middle Eastern locales)

Sometimes the name of the country is derived from the people's name (Swiss -> Switzerland, Arab -> Arabia, Croat -> Croatia).

In a few cases, demonyms are borrowed from other languages or adapted in a process of linguistic mutation where English demonyms are similar to those of other languages (Kosovo -> Kosovan (English demonym) -> Kosovar (Albanian demonym also used in English)).

Finally, in a few cases the name of the country is not at all related to the name of the people (Netherlands -> Dutch), usually because the two words originate from different languages.

Demonyms can be nouns or adjectives. In many cases the noun and adjective forms are the same (Canadian/Canadian); in other cases they are different (Spaniard/Spanish, Slovene/Slovenian).
In some of the latter cases the noun is formed by adding -man or -woman (English/Englishman/Englishwoman, the obsolete Chinese/Chinaman/Chinawoman).

Often the name of the Language is the same as the demonym.

In the case of U.S. states, it is non-standard to use demonyms as adjectives (for example "Georgia peach", not "Georgian peach") except when referring to people ("Ben Franklin is Pennsylvanian.")

See also