I was wondering if there are any set of rules which govern naming a place’s residents, such as Bostonian for a person from Boston, New Yorker, Texan or Londoner. So whats a person from Ohio called?
Is it just whatever sounds easy on the tongue?
Ohioan.
Lord knows what the rules are. I’ve been living in Ottawa for three years, and I have no idea what I am. Ottawanian? Ottowaite?
Shameless plug:
No, there is no rule, check it out for yourself. It is consistant with most names ending with a, i, o, and some others. My feeling is that they added on whatever would sound good.
Aside from my joy to find someone else, which is the reason I posted, I have thought of something for us: Ottawatonian. For kentsubra, maybe Ohian? Doesn’t look right, maybe just ‘Hi, I’m from Ohio.’ Oh well.
“name calling rules” sounds like an observation that would be made concerning a grade-school playground. Did anybody else parse the title that way?
Yeah that’s what I thought this thread would be about too!
According to this link, someone hailing from the great state of Indiana is a Indianan or Indianian. Whaaaa??Clearly these words do not roll off the tongue.
And all this time I thought we were just plain “Hoosiers”. Of course, no one knows what the hell that means either 
Rather then pull that thread up I thought I’d post this here. Hawaiian is pretty much solely reserved only for those with Hawaiian blood. Those of us who don’t look Hawaiian and can’t prove any blood line (due to adoption) must be happy with local or kama’aina.
I always found it interesting how there were no names to identify a person from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I know they have ones for certain groups like English, Scotish, Irish etc. But what about the nation in its entirety. Uker? Ukie?
British or Briton
and that would include the bits in Ireland and in the Channel?
Depends on what the people in Ireland and the Channel Islands would like to be called. I would use Channel Islander and Irelander, but that’s just me.
Actually, forget that. I’d just use Irish and change the sentence to fit the term.
Now let me think about the first question, the rules …
I think generally -an is the most popular. And only in rare cases do they deviate. A variety of the -an would be -ian which I know exists in Bostonian, Algerian. -vian could also be a variant of this strain, like Peruvian. -ese also seems to be popular, especially among Asians, liked Chinese, Japanese and Siamese. But isn’t there also Congolese? I can’t think of any European -ese. There are a few -ish, liked English, Irish and Danish even Turkish, but that may be going out, being replaced by just Turk. Others are irregular like Greek, French and Thai. I think all the ones but the -an and variant might be from their language. I think all those irregular ones might be the original names those people had for themselves. They were the Latins, they spoke the Latin language works for Greeks and French too. Did I miss any?
This sounds like it might be fun for an anal retentive person. Just sit down, think of all these types of words you can, group them and compare the sizes when you’re done. I may just do that someday.
I don’t have a suffix dictionary, and can’t find one, only definitions of suffix. I need to search better, but I wont.
I believe it’s hard to find rules governing this. There’s really no good reason why Floridians couldn’t be Floridans, except that it made possible the transition to Floridiots in the last elections. (Finally, name calling, as promised in the OP!)
But seriously, what rule would allow for Netherlanders to be called Dutchmen?
Never one to miss an opportunity to share wisdom I’ve gained through hard experience …
People from Charlotte, North Carolina, are properly referred to as “Charlotteans” (pronounced “shar-lah-tee-unz”) and not, as I so wrongly guessed, “Charlottans” (pronounced like “charlatans”).
On the other hand, if you’re ever passing through and you want to piss off a native, ignore the above.
[quote]
And all this time I thought we were just plain “Hoosiers”.**
Ruby, I sympathize. There’s a difference between the official description and the nickname, though. Try growing up as a “Sandlapper.”
[sub]boy, it’s been a long time since I made that mistake[/sub]
-ian is probably most common, but the ending is usually determined by euphony – what sounds good. One example of this is that the natives of Troy, NY are called “Trojans.” Ignoring the obvious joke, the change from “y” to “j” is an attempt to make the word sound better.
And here I thought it had something to do with the city of Troy and some silly war they had… Oh, and some wooden horse thingy, too. 