Ethnonyme is often used like a synonym of Gentilé and thus indicates a name of inhabitants: Corsican for example.

But since two terms are available one tends to specialize them:

1. Gentilé within the meaning of name of inhabitants compared to a place (country, province, city…) Parisian French or for example,
2. ethnonyme within the meaning of name of people (which can of the remainder correspond to a name of inhabitants ), ethnonyme being formed on the Greek ethnos , “people” and returning clearly to the concept of Ethnie in French: the Rroms or Tziganes for example, Breton S or Corsica S, the Buckwheats (used as ethnonyme wrongly because it designated all the people of Moslem confession without distinction).

This distinction will take especially its direction on the spot where several ethnicities cohabit, or are pleasing being distingés for various reasons. For example one will distinguish:

• Finnish (amenable to the Finland: Gentilé) and Finnish ( ethnonyme )

• the Inhabitant of Thailand (amenable to the Thailand) and Thai (member of the Thai people)
• Polish (amenable to the Poland) and the Poles (member of the ethnicity of the Pole in Central Europe).

One will notice in these examples that they are the names of countries which were built starting from the ethnonymes, then gentilés which were built starting from the names of country, while passing by the suffix Land ( country ):

• Finnish

  - > Finland ( Suomi in Finnish) - > Finnish

• Pole - > Poland ( Poland in English) - > Polish
• Thai - > Thailand - > Inhabitant of Thailand

Étymologiquement, for example, Inhabitant of Thailand mean: living country of the Thais . One observes the same type of construction with the France.

• Frankly - > France - > French

One can predict the creation of gentilés on certain countries or areas if they were to become immigration countries, for example: Kurdish - > Kurdistan - > Kurdistanais (this word does not exist, the suffix stan wants to say country ).

Finally one observes an atypical construction in the case of the Pakistan. The name of this country is an acronym formed with the name of the provinces of the country: the ''' P ''' andjab, the ''' has ''' fghania (Province-border of the North-West), the ''' K ''' to ashmir, the ''' S ''' ind and the Baloutchis ''' tan '''. The final form imitating the suffix stan ( country ), the forgery ethnonyme Pak or Paki was formed, employed sometimes affectionately, sometimes pejoratively, without it not representing particular people (the Pakistan gathers several ethnicities: Pendjabis, Sindhis, Pachtous, Baloutches, Muhadjirs).

Internal bonds

• Exonyme
• Gentilé
• Autoethnonyme