BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
Who are you if you live in Caldwell? What is the collective group of people living in Nampa called? For thousands of people here, there isn’t an answer to that question.
When asked, Nampa officials said they reached out to a lifelong resident who said “Nampans” was the only demonym he’d heard.
“This has been a very fun conversation in our office. Unfortunately, we do not have (a) clear answer to give you,” Nampa spokesperson Amy Bowman said. “The mayor actually wasn’t sure what to say.”
Demonyms are a shorter way to refer to people as a group, especially if they are a certain kind of person, e.g., “Boiseans are terrible drivers,” instead of “People from Boise are terrible drivers.”
There’s the convenience of the word but also its meaning. It’s also an urge to express a generalization, according to Kurt Queller, senior instructor emeritus in linguistics at the University of Idaho.
Caldwell’s spokesperson told the Idaho Press she hadn’t heard of a term people like to use for those in Caldwell.
Longtime Meridian resident and Meridian City Council President Brad Hoaglun uses “Meridianite,” according to the city’s spokesperson.
A Star spokesperson said the city doesn’t have a demonym that’s taken hold yet. The mayor simply refers to people there as “citizens of Star,” the spokesperson said. Eagle’s mayor does not have a specific demonym, a spokesperson said, and neither does Garden City’s mayor. Kuna said they say “Kunan.”
There seems to be at least one very clear answer. If you live in Boise, you’re a Boisean. And it’s one demonym Boise Mayor Lauren McLean has used multiple times.
“Boiseans are at our best when we’re working together,” McLean said in her 2023 state of the city address. It’s a word she said at least seven times in her speech that day.
In contrast, Meridian Mayor Robert Simison used the words “our residents” six times in his 2023 state of the city address. Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling also avoided a demonym in her annual speech.
“We have amazing people in this community,” Kling said in her state of the city last year.
Demonym comes from the Greek words demos (an administrative division or its people) and onyma (which means name), according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Demonyms can end in -an, -ish, -ese, -er, -ite, -i or some other replacement, elongation or truncation of a word. Demonyms can also be informal, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which identified “Aussie” and “Kiwi” for Australians and New Zealanders, respectively.
“One of the remarkable things of things about these demonyms is sometimes they’re playful,” Queller said.
For example, maybe people from Eagle can be called Eaglets. Or people from Star could be “asteroids,” Queller suggested. In fact, asteroid is a Greek formation that means “having the form of a star,” he said.
But other times, the demonym works because it doesn’t shift the stress of a word and make it unrecognizable. “Boisean” works in part because it keeps the regular emphasis of “Boise.” Other demonyms, like Boston to Bostonian, sound different.
Queller said Meridianite works because the most common suffix is -an or -ian, but in this case would shift the accent. Meridianian or Meridanian would not be right, he said.
However, he said Nampan sounds right, although according to the Tampa Bay Times, Tampeño, Tampanian and Tampan are all demonyms for the similarly-spelled city.
Caldwell residents are possibly Caldwellians, Queller said. For Kuna, Kunan and Kunite are both possible, he said. Kunanian, ala Panamanian (Panama) is another option, though maybe just for fun.
Garden City residents could be Garden Citizens, though citizen has political connotations, Queller said. Gardenian is another option, Queller said, that wouldn’t be as confusing as Gardeners.
But the Treasure Valley seems to be lacking in demonyms. There’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the list of adjectivals and demonyms for Colorado cities. Even the small ones.
“Demonyms are a way of deriving a new word from an existing word,” Queller said. Deriving new words tends to be a little less predictable, he said. “There are more possibilities and sometimes, impossibilities.”
Maybe this means we’re all just Idahoans. Or maybe it leaves the door open for some enterprising linguists in the area to come up with something to explain our identities.
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
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