Ethnonym

An ethnonym is a name that is used to refer to an ethnic group, or a group of people who identify with each other as a distinct “people.” Ethnonyms are generally categorized as either endonyms (also called “autonyms,” names that come from inside the group) or exonyms (names that come from outside of the group).

Endonyms

Endonyms (or autonyms) are names that originatewithin the ethnic group to which they refer. Endonyms usually come from the traditional language of a group, but foreign names for the group are also sometimes adopted and transformed into a type of autonym. Three Native American groups – the Anishinabe, the Lenape, and the Diné – provide good examples.

All three terms mean “people” or “original people,” as do many other endonyms around the world. This has a lot to do with the primary function of ethnonyms, which is to provide a sense of identity to members of the group. In the case of endonyms, a name that simply means “people” plays an important role in identity formation by dividing the world into clearly delineated “us” and “them” categories.

Each group has also adopted one or more foreign names as secondary autonyms. The Lenape also refer to themselves as “Delaware.” The largest Anishinabe group goes by “Ojibwe” in Canada and “Chippewa” in the United States. And the Diné have adopted the name “Navaho” (or Navajo). Though these names do not originate in the traditional languages of the groups to which they refer, they may be considered autonyms because the people of those groups use them to refer to themselves.

Exonyms

An exonym is a name that is applied to an ethnic group by another group or groups of people. For instance, the English word “German” and the Spanish word “alemán” both refer to the people who call themselves “Deutsch.”

These names often originate as descriptions of some unique characteristic of the group - where they are from, what they eat, what they look like, etc. Many of the commonly used names for Native American groups started this way; some were relatively neutral descriptions of the group while others were more disparaging. For example, the terms “Ojibwe” and “Chippewa” come from the Algonquin word “otchipwa” (to pucker), a reference to the style of moccasins that were traditionally worn by the Anishinabe people.

The sources of other exonyms are sometimes harder to trace. Numerous explanations have been suggested for the origin of the word “Navajo,” citing both English and Spanish words and phrases for various descriptions of the Diné.

Many of the ethnonyms that are commonly categorized as exonyms are not properly exonyms but rather translations or corruptions of endonyms. The term “French” is an example: it is an English word, but it is derived from the endonym “Français,” so it does not really belong in the category of exonyms. In the same way, the French word “Anglais” refers to the English people.