Endonyms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Names used by a particular group to refer to themselves, often distinct from external labels or terms assigned by others
2. Identifiers that communities adopt to express their identity and culture, differing from what outsiders might call them
3. Terms employed within a group to convey their sense of belonging and heritage, as opposed to names used by the wider public or other cultures

Etymology: An endonym is a name a group uses for itself, as opposed to the name outsiders give it. The "endo-" part comes from Ancient Greek "éndon," meaning "within" or "inside," which also gives us words like "endogamy" and "endoscope." The "-onym" part traces back through Ancient Greek "ónuma" (a variant of "ónoma," "name") to an Indo-European root for name. The formation is a modern one. Scholars combined the Greek elements into a technical pattern: "-ōnymum" appears in New Latin, and English adopted "-onym" as a suffix, so "endonym" was built from parts that were ancient but the word itself is not. Its counterpart, "exonym," follows the same pattern with the Greek "exo-" meaning "outside," so the two terms are coined as a matched pair.