Demonyms
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50 free Demonyms trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A demonym is the word for the people of a particular place: the name you give someone who comes from a given country, city, state or region. The term was built from the Greek words for 'people' and 'name', and it only caught on in English in the 1990s, though the names themselves are as old as travel. Most national demonyms follow a handful of tidy patterns, with a familiar ending bolted onto the place name. The fun starts where the pattern breaks: countries whose citizens are called something that looks nothing like the map, cities that still answer to their Roman names, and nicknames that began as insults before locals claimed them. This quiz covers national demonyms from around the world, the best-known city and state nicknames of Britain and the United States, and a few demonyms that slipped into everyday English as words for foods, dog breeds and personality types. It suits geography fans, word lovers and anyone who has ever wondered what to call the neighbours.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Citizens of which country share their demonym's root with Deutsch, the German word for German?
Netherlands
The Netherlands' demonym, Dutch, comes from the same old Germanic word as Deutsch, meaning 'of the people'. English once used Dutch for German speakers too.
Q 02The kiwifruit, once the Chinese gooseberry, shares its name with a nickname for which country's citizens?
New Zealand
New Zealand exporters Turners & Growers adopted the name in 1959, borrowing kiwi, the national bird that had already given New Zealanders their nickname.
Q 03Hoosier, a word of disputed origin, is the official demonym for which Midwestern US state?
Indiana
Indiana residents have been Hoosiers since the 1830s, yet nobody has settled where the word came from. An 1833 poem, The Hoosier's Nest, helped it spread.
Q 04A Scouser, a nickname taken from a sailors' stew, is a native of which English port city?
Liverpool
Liverpool's nickname comes from scouse, short for lobscouse, a sailors' stew with cousins across northern Europe, such as Norway's lapskaus.
Q 05Which demonym from an ancient Greek city-state now also means austere, frugal and self-disciplined?
Spartan
Spartan earned its second meaning from the city's harsh upbringing: boys of the citizen class entered a state training system, the agoge, at age seven.
Q 06Wiener, the German word behind one of the hot dog's names, means a native of which European capital?
Vienna
Vienna is Wien in German, so a Wiener is simply a Viennese, and the sausage name is short for Wienerwurst, or Vienna sausage.
Q 07Which dog breed shares its name with the demonym for a historic region on Croatia's Adriatic coast?
Dalmatian
Dalmatian dogs are traced to Dalmatia, but the breed was developed chiefly in England, where a 1790 book already called it the Coach Dog.
Q 08A Muscovite, a name recalling medieval Muscovy, is a resident of which European capital?
Moscow
Moscow's demonym also names a mineral: muscovite mica was once called Muscovy glass, because medieval Russia used thin sheets of it as cheap window panes.
Q 09Which demonym for natives of the western Czech lands also means an unconventional artist or writer?
Bohemian
Bohemian gained its artistic sense in France, where the Romani were called bohémiens in the mistaken belief that they had come from Bohemia.
Q 10In much of Germany, which city demonym is also the everyday name for a jam-filled doughnut?
Berliner
Berliner is the pastry's name in northern and western Germany, but in Berlin itself it is just a Pfannkuchen, so the locals never order one by that name.
Q 11The demonyms for citizens of China, Portugal, Vietnam and Senegal all end in which shared suffix?
-ese
The suffix -ese came into English from Italian and goes back to the Latin ending -ensis, meaning originating in.
Q 12Deutschland, the name Germans themselves use for Germany, is an example of which kind of name?
Endonym
Endonym joins the Greek for 'within' to the word for 'name'. Germany, Allemagne and Niemcy are the reverse: labels that outsiders use for the same country.
Q 13A true Cockney is traditionally born within earshot of the Bow Bells in which English city?
London
London's Cockney began as a Middle English word for a small, misshapen egg, literally a cock's egg, and was a taunt for soft town-dwellers before it settled on Londoners.
Q 21Sooners, originally settlers who jumped the gun in an 1889 land rush, are residents of which US state?
Oklahoma
Oklahoma's Sooners began as rule-breakers who slipped into the Unassigned Lands before the official start, and the word was an insult at first. The state university's football team took it up in 1908.
Q 22An Angeleno is a resident of which California city, founded as a Spanish pueblo in 1781?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles began as a pueblo whose long Spanish name honoured Our Lady the Queen of the Angels, and Angeleno comes from the American Spanish Angeleño.
Q 23Knickerbocker, also a word for old-fashioned knee breeches, is an old term for a native of which American city?
New York
Q 14A Brummie is a native of which city in the English Midlands?
Birmingham
Birmingham was Brummagem in local speech, a word that also came to mean cheap, shoddy imitations, a sense that seems to date from its 17th-century reputation for counterfeit coins.
Q 15Mancunian, from the Latin name of a Roman fort, is the demonym for which city in northern England?
Manchester
Manchester grew from the Roman fort of Mamucium, also written Mancunium, founded around AD 79 in what is now the Castlefield district.
Q 16A Geordie, a pet form of George, is a native of which city in northern England?
Newcastle
Newcastle's Geordies are named after a familiar form of George, a name once very common among the region's coal miners.
Q 17Neapolitan, as in the three-flavoured ice cream, is the demonym for which southern Italian city?
Naples
Naples was refounded in the sixth century BC as Neapolis, Greek for new city, and its demonym still echoes that older name.
Q 18Jovian describes the moons and imagined inhabitants of which giant planet?
Jupiter
Jupiter was also called Jove, which is why its adjective is Jovian. Astrologers' older form, jovial, came to mean merry, a mood they credited to the planet's influence.
Q 19Buckeyes, also the name of a famous college football team, are residents of which US state?
Ohio
Ohio is the Buckeye State after its state tree, whose nut has markings that were said to resemble the eye of a deer.
Q 20Tar Heel is a nickname for natives of which US state, long a producer of tar, pitch and turpentine?
North Carolina
North Carolina's Tar Heel label was first pinned on poor labourers in its pine forests, then embraced with pride by the state's soldiers in the Civil War.
New York owes the word to Diedrich Knickerbocker, the invented historian whom Washington Irving named as the author of his 1809 satirical history of the city.
Q 24Bay Staters is the official name, set by state law, for citizens of which US state?
Massachusetts
Massachusetts fixed Bay Staters in its General Laws, while federal style, set by the Government Publishing Office, prefers the tongue-twisting Massachusettsan.
Q 25Nutmegger is a nickname for residents of which New England state?
Connecticut
Connecticut's Nutmeg State label has no agreed origin. One tongue-in-cheek tale says its peddlers sold carved wooden nutmegs to unsuspecting customers.
Q 26Kamaʻāina, literally a child of the land, describes residents of which US state, whatever their ancestry?
Hawaii
Hawaii's kamaʻāina need only be local, not Native Hawaiian, and many shops, hotels and attractions offer them a kamaʻāina rate, a discount for residents.
Q 27Which future US president popularised Michigander in an 1848 speech attacking Michigan's Lewis Cass?
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, then a Whig congressman, used it as a jab at Cass, though the word had been around since at least 1820.
Q 28Cajun is a worn-down form of which demonym for French settlers deported by the British from Nova Scotia?
Acadian
Acadian became Cadien in Louisiana French and then Cajun in English, after thousands of the deportees resettled in Louisiana in the late 1700s.
Q 29Manx is the demonym, and the name of a tailless cat breed, from which island?
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man's Manx name also covers its Celtic language, whose last native speaker died in 1974 before learners revived it.
Q 30Hibernian, from the Romans' name Hibernia, is a poetic demonym for natives of which European island?
Ireland
Ireland was Hibernia in Classical Latin, a name its emigrants carried abroad: Edinburgh's Hibernian football club was founded in 1875 by the city's Irish community.