Definition of toponyms and names

Toponyms are proper name nouns that correspond to places or regions. On the other hand, demonyms are understood as those terms -adjectives- that name people, animals or things that inhabit or come from a region, as a linguistic concept that determines the origin or provenance territorial. examples. Toponyms: Amazon, Easter Island. demonyms: Mexican, Belgian, Jalisco, Parisian.

Quote (APA)

Indira Ahmed Fernandez | Aug. 2022
Bachelor of Hispanic Letters

We all live in a continent, a country, a region, a city. The names of all these places are known in lexicography as toponyms. But what are all those people who live in the same place called in a generic way? Those are the demonyms and they are normally formed by adding suffixes to the toponym. Therefore, it is correct to say that these two terms refer to the names of places and their inhabitants.

Toponyms, and therefore demonyms, can refer to various things: as the planet is divided into continents, continents into countries, these into states or provinces and these into cities, each of these elements has its own denomination.

Toponyms

This category is closely related to the geography, since it is about places. Even so, it becomes difficult to make a complete catalog of these when scholars are faced with the need to name new sites or those that are not included in the traditional repertoire.

The discipline who deals with this classification is toponymy, also known as toponomastics. The word comes from the Greek “tópos”, which means place, and “ónoma”, which means name; and is responsible for the study of the origin and meaning of these names.

It is interesting to note that there is a difference between the term geographical name and the term toponym, since the latter refers to the cultural characteristics of the place, the particularities of East. The former may have political, economic, strategic or military motives and the discipline that studies it is mapping, an area belonging to geography. However, some authors use these terms as synonyms.

The factors that mostly favor the formation of toponyms, according to Ignacio Guzmán Betancourt, are: related to geographical accidents of the place, such as hills, mountains, caves, etc. (orographic); related to the existence of water, whether stagnant or running (hydrological); names motivated by the presence of certain animals in the area (zoos); related to the typical area of ​​the site (botanical); allude to the color that predominates in the area to be named (chromatic).

Other less used, but also to be taken into account are: names that are derived from divinities and figures mythological, related to historical figures. The latter occur above all in regions within the city environment, such as street names, neighborhoods or small settlements.

The treatment given to toponyms in Spanish is based on the graphic forms appropriate to the language: it is generally translated and its form is used in our language. But some use non-Latin alphabets and therefore must be adapted to the phonetics Spanish (this is the case of Qatar, for example). Others do not contain translation-sensitive forms, so they are used in their original form (Canterbury, Ottawa).

demonyms

In the case of being related to things, it refers to something that indisputably comes from a specific place: tequila is an example, since it is produced in Mexico (specifically Jalisco). Therefore, in general, it is a Mexican product, known worldwide as something that represents the country. In case of being related to animals, it refers to the native fauna of a region. An example of this is the Bengal tiger. In the case of people, the names refer to the place of origin or nationality.

Eg A person who was born in Mexico is Mexican. Regardless of where you live in the world, your origin determines the name that characterizes you.

The demonyms are adjectives and within this category they present morphemes of number and person, to agree with the noun they describe. Taking the example above:

Mexican Mexican
mexicans

While toponyms are always written with an initial capital letter, as they are proper names, demonyms always go with lowercase (except for some particularity of the speech that requires the emphasis of the word and that assimilates the uppercase initial. the Revolution Cuban).