Examples of internal demonyms as surnames?

Factual Questions
1

In a recent Politics & Elections post, @John_Bredin wrote the following about Hungarian politician Péter Magyar:

John _Bredin is right. Some (or even many) cultures do have demonyms serve as surnames. Most common are those that seem to refer to an ancestor who was an outsider to a given group – an external demonym. For example, the Italian surnames Tedesco essentially meaning “The German” and Schiavo meaning “The Slav”.

Seemingly less common as surnames are demonyms that apparently denote an insider to a group – an internal demonym. Magyar’s surname would be an example. Some others would be the English-language surnames English and (perhaps) Scott, the German surname Deutscher, and (stretching a bit) the Turkish Türkoğlu. Harkening back to when the ethno-national lines in Europe differed from today, we can also consider surnames such as Spanish Navarro and Italian Siciliano.

The FQ is simply: Are there many other surnames out there that are internal demonyms? If so, what are some examples?

2

Nitpick: Magyars are an ethnic group that makes up the majority (97.7%) of Hungary. Similarly: Iranians are a people who have citizenship of Iran, and Persians are something like 2/3 of the country. Bosnian is a nationality and Bosniak is an ethnoreligious group (just over 50% of the country), though this is more relying on the historic religion than any genetic differences with their neighbors. The weird example I can think of is that Somali is both a demonym but not everybody in the country is an ethnic Somali. So I’m not clear if you’re asking about nationality or ethnicity, but we can do both.

Turks didn’t have surnames as a rule until 1934, so Türkoğlu was likely in recent memory chosen to honor the country.

To help any further searches: exonym is a name designed by outsiders, endonym by the group in question. It’s less common for these to become names, but some examples I can think of are:

  • Suomi (Finland)
  • Horvat (Croatia)
  • Moravec (Czech, from Moravia)
  • Bharat or Bharath (India, usually a first name)
  • Moldoveanu (Moldova, but also in Romania which is the same language)
  • Maybe De Gaulle?
  • Arabic has a bunch of al- names designating where the person came from (al-Iraqi) or later adopted as an inherited name, not surnames as such.

Tons of examples of surnames derived from place names within a country (or possibly former countries), but that list is long.

3

Either or both of nationality and ethnicity. In the OP, I’m thinking generally of endonyms on the “nation/kingdom” (either erstwhile or present-day) level or the “population/ethnicity” level and not on the “region” or “city” level. As you note – surnames derived from mere “place names” are legion.

…

DeGaulle is a good example.

4

I don’t know the ground rules of Arabic naming conventions (esp what counts as a surname/family name), but I’ll offer these for consideration:

Masri, Masry, Misri or Al-Masri and El-Masry (Arabic: المصري, commonly spelled in the Egyptian dialect as المصرى) is Semitic language (Arabic and Hebrew) last name that literally means “the Egyptian”. The surname is commonly found in modern Egyptians …

5

The French given name/ surname François fits the bill, I believe.

6

Ultimately yes, but I think it’s more like “cousin” names. The Franks called themselves Franci, which may or may not have been related to their word for “free.” Eventually this lead to the Latin name Franciscus, and derivatives in other languages across families like: Francis/Frances, François, Franz, Franco, etc. Either related or separately, these Germanic-speaking peoples lent their name to a part of their kingdom, which was later expanded and Romanized to a different language group, creating the Kingdom of France, and later the Republic Empire Kingdom Republic Empire Republic collaborationist rump state Republic Republic

7

There’s the Keanu Reeves character’s improbable name from Point Break: Johnny Utah. He might have a little Ute blood in him…

8

Verner Suomi was a pioneer in satellite meteorology, responsible for the first weather observation satellite and the ground processing systems and software associated with that mission.

The Wiki article for the surname “Suomi” actually lists half-a-dozen notable people.

9

I know two unrelated people with the surname French. My dictionary of last names tells me it means…French person.

Interestingly, neither of them claim recent French ancestry.

10

Robert Timothy French created French’s mustard.

11

Apparently, the surname “French” first appeared in England in the 14th Century and comes from the Norman word for ash tree.

12

I’ve also seen the surname LeFrançois. That was a good one.

…

Didn’t know about Suomi as as surname, gnoitall. Thanks for dropping that one in the thread.

13

Charles DeGaulle has been mentioned.

But what about the singer France Gall? Is Gall another demonym variation?

14

Dr. Craig Israelite replaced my knees. Good surgeon.

15

Wow, I just have to say: I haven’t heard anyone mention France Gall in about 30 years! I used to love her.

16

This one is interesting: Caleb Southern, born in North Carolina.

“Southern” might not be a true demonym, since “Southerner” is the full demonym; but it’s the adjectival version of the demonym. Furthermore, “Southern” as a surname doesn’t refer to the American South, but to the English South, and it appears to be something of an external demonym there. But that points to its existence as a traditional demonym for another part of the world from where Caleb Southern lived.

Edit: crap, I just saw your follow-up where you said you’re less interested in regional demonyms. Sorry!

17

Schweitzer (Switzerland)

18

Samuel German invented German chocolate cake.

If actress France Nuyen married video game designer American McGee, would they always serve their kids Franco-American spaghetti and meatballs?

19

The name prefix, if you will, Von, Van, Ter, Sud, etc. also indicates that one’s ancestors were from or near a certain place.

20

Von can be both “of” or “from” but also in the German and Austrian(-Hungary) Empire and later was a sign of nobility. Some guys tacked on a von to be fancy. “Van” and the like don’t have the same connotations in Dutch as far as I know, it’s a toponymic feature.