Why peoples have two names: endonym and exonym

Lesson 3 of 5 in "Start here", about 5 minutes

An endonym is the name a people uses for itself. An exonym is a name given by outsiders. The Greek roots help: endo means inside, exo means outside, and onym means name. Everyone has met this in daily life. Germans call their country Deutschland. Japanese call theirs Nihon or Nippon. India is also Bharat. 'Germany', 'Japan' and 'India' are exonyms.

How exonyms came about

Explorers, traders and officials rarely asked a people what it called itself. They asked the neighbours, or guides who spoke another language, and wrote down what they heard. Sometimes the neighbours were rivals, and the name was unflattering. Sometimes it was a place name, a misheard word, or a label for a way of life. Once printed on maps and in laws, the name stuck.

• Diné is the endonym. Navajo is the exonym, recorded by the Spanish.
• Haudenosaunee, 'people of the longhouse', is the endonym. Iroquois is an exonym that came through French.
• Sámi is the endonym. Lapp is an older exonym that Sámi people consider insulting.
• Kurukh is the endonym of the people known in India as Oraon.
• Kalaallit is the endonym of the Inuit of western Greenland.

Names that simply mean 'people'

A striking number of endonyms translate as 'the people' or 'human beings'. Inuit means 'people' in the Inuit language. Diné means 'the people'. Ainu means 'human' in the Ainu language of northern Japan. Hor, the Santhal word for themselves, and Ho, the name of a neighbouring people in Jharkhand, carry the same sense. It is a reminder that every group begins by seeing itself as simply us.

When an exonym hurts

Some exonyms are neutral. Others are offensive, because of what they meant or how they were used. 'Eskimo' was applied by outsiders to the Inuit and Yupik peoples of the Arctic. Inuit in Canada and Greenland reject it. In Alaska some people still use it, partly because Inuit does not cover the Yupik, so the careful choice there is 'Alaska Native' or the specific name.

'Bushmen' is another case. It was a colonial label for the hunter-gatherer peoples of southern Africa. San is now more common, though it too came from their neighbours. Most prefer their own group names, such as Ju/'hoansi or Naro. In central Africa, 'Pygmy' is widely felt to be demeaning, and names such as Baka, Mbuti and Batwa are better.

The word 'Indian'

The peoples of the Americas were called Indians because Columbus believed he had reached Asia. The word remains in United States law, as in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and many Native people use American Indian or Indian among themselves. Others prefer Native American, or Indigenous. In Canada, 'Indian' survives in an old law but First Nations is the respectful everyday term.

What to do as a reader or writer

Use the endonym where it is known and preferred, and add the older name once if your readers may not recognise it: 'the Diné, also known as Navajo'. Check how the people's own organisations write the name. Be aware that preferences vary within a community and change over time. Some peoples have no known endonym at all: nobody outside knows what the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands call themselves.

Words in this lesson