More about demonyms for cities - in Idaho and elsewhere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Idaho Press and then KTVB7 there is an article by Carolyn Komatsoulis on August 7, 2023 titled Idahoans. Boiseans. Nampans? Meridianites? A hard-hitting investigation into what the Treasure Valley’s demonyms are. On January 22, 2023 I blogged about how Demonyms aren’t about demons, but they can be in Table Topics questions for Toastmasters.

 

She discusses how although we in the state capital are known as Boiseans other Treasure Valley cities are less defined. In some cases, like Boise, the demonym even is listed on the relevant Wikipedia page. Carolyn missed that Caldwell residents should quite perfectly be known as Caldwellers rather than Caldwellians.

 

Choosing a demonym requires avoiding a name that only might apply to some residents. For example, not every resident of Garden City is a Gardener. And not everyone in Horseshoe Bend is a blacksmith, so they should be Horseshoe Bendians rather than Horseshoe Benders (and that also applies for Bend, Oregon). I mentioned them earlier in my March 26, 2017 blog post titled Table Topics – What should we call people who live in that city?

 

In that post I also mentioned the problem of needing variations for -men and -women when using names ending with -man, like Hagerman (and also Lowman, Idaho or Boardman, Oregon).  

 

Residents of Oregon are called Oregonians; only those with terminal conditions can be called Oregoners.

 

Wikipedia has a page titled List of Capitals in the United  States. I used it to painlessly search a lot of the state capitals. Some are confusing, like that residents of Albany, New York are Albanians (which instead should refer to another country). That also goes for calling Phoenix residents Phoenicians. Those in Olympia, Washington likely are not athletic enough to deserve being called Olympians.  

 

Wikipedia has another page titled Provinces and territories of Canada which links to their pages for their capitals. For Nova Scotia residents of Halifax are Haligonians; Halifaxers would only refer to those who transmit information via fax. The capital of Quebec is Quebec City, so residents are Québécois de Québec. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, so their residents are Victorians. But most of us might instead think because the UK’s Queen Victoria died back in 1901 all those Victorians also should be dead. The capital of Manitoba is Winnipeg, and the residents are known as Winnipeggers. Unfortunately, there is another more recent and much ruder meaning for pegger. Pegging refers to anal sex done to a man by a woman with a strapon dildo!   

 

The image of a demon was modified from this one at Openclipart.