You have surely heard the unusual names of inhabitants of certain French cities. Test your knowledge of the peoples of these towns with our quiz below. But where does the word gentile come from? The gentilé, also known as an ethnic name, comes from the Latin gentile meaning “people”. It is attested in 1752 in French and is more precisely designated by the term gentile nomen. The latter corresponds to the family name among the Romans, as stated by the lexical portal of the CNRS.
For each French commune, a gentilé was therefore assigned to the inhabitants to distinguish them from the others. To choose the name, some may have relied on history, etymology or even usage. However, some have nothing to do with the name of the city. Discover in our slideshow below the names of the most unusual inhabitants.
To establish the name of the inhabitants of each municipality, several methods are used. Many of them are based on history, but others are based on usage. Thus, the official denomination of the city of Seine-Saint-Denis is Séquano-Dionysiens. However, The mayor’s newspaper reports that the inhabitants of this city are rather called the “nine-threes”. Moreover, there is indeed a National Commission of toponymy, but the latter deals only very little with the gentiles of French communes favoring the names of inhabitants of foreign countries.
Thus, communities usually designate the names of their inhabitants themselves. In general, a call for suggestions is issued to people residing in the municipality. Then, a few people are selected before having them voted online on the community’s website. Finally, the elected officials validate the selected name. Discover in our slideshow below the name chosen by the inhabitants to designate themselves.
