You know Nigeria’s citizens are Nigerians, but what are the folks in neighboring Niger called? Are they also Nigerians, or Nigerans, or maybe Nigerites? What you’re looking for is Niger’s proper demonym.
A demonym is a word that identifies people from a particular place. There are demonyms attached to countries, regions, cities, and entire continents – places big and small.
Some demonyms are straightforward. It’s easy to see how, for example, Canada’s citizens are called Canadians and Australia’s are Australians. In English a demonym is commonly formed by adding one of a handful of suffixes (for example, -ian or -ite) to all or much of the location’s name.
That’s true for most places, but not all. Some demonyms seem to come from out of left field. Scotland’s most populous city has Glaswegians, not Glasgowers. Residents of Halifax – whether the Halifax in England or the one on Canada’s Atlantic coast – are Haligonians, not Halifaxites. The demonym for the town of Shrewsbury, England, is Salopian.
England, in fact, has many fascinating local demonyms. As noted at iheartbriton.com, Oxford residents are Oxonians while Newcastle upon Tyne is populated by Novocastrians. People in Leeds can be called either Leodensians or Loiners. The northwest’s Manchester has Mancunians. The West Midlands borough of Wolverhampton has Wulfrunians.
Those irregular demonyms tend to have their roots in Latin. The Online Etymology Dictionary says Oxonian is from Medieval Latin. Novocastrian is from Novocastrum, the Latin version of Newcastle. Leodensian comes from Leeds’s Latin name, but how locals ever came to be called Loiners is unclear. Manchester residents are Mancunians because an old Latin name for the area was Mancunium. Wulfrunian, however, does not have Latin roots; instead, it is from the name of a Saxon lady credited as Wolverhampton’s founder.
Not surprisingly, giant India has a colourful variety of local demonyms. Bengaluru, also called Bangalore, has at least four demonyms: Bangalorean, Bengalurinavaru, Bengalurean, Bengaluriga. Mumbai, formerly Bombay, has millions of Bombayites or Mumbaiites. Jaipur’s demonyms include Jaipuri and Jaipuriya. Lucknow’s are Lakhnawi and Lucknowite.
Thunder Bay, my Canadian city of residence, seems to have settled on the demonym Thunder Bayite, though Wikipedia identifies Thunder Bayer as its demonym. (A lifelong resident, however, told me she had never heard city denizens being called Thunder Bayers.) Personally, I wish it were Baysider, which sounds classy to my ears.
If you’re going to use a demonym, be sure you’re using a correct, accepted one. A quick Google or DuckDuckGo search should give you the information you need, but be sure there’s more than one source supplying the demonym. If you get further confirmation by finding instances of locals actually using the demonym, all the better.
Niger’s demonym, by the way, is Nigerien.