An
exonym (from the
Greek ???,
éxo, "out" and
???µa,
ónoma, "name") is a
name for a place or a
personal name[1] that is not used within that place or for that person by the local inhabitants (neither in the official language of the state nor in local languages),
[2] or a
name for a people or
language that is not used by the people or language to which it refers. The name used by the people or locals themselves is called
endonym,
autonym (from the Greek
??d??,
éndon, "within" or
a?t?,
autó, "self" and ???µa,
ónoma, "name"), or
self-appellation. For example,
Germany is the
English exonym corresponding to the endonym
Deutschland and
Greece is the
English exonym corresponding to the endonym
Ellada.
Exonyms may derive from distinct roots as in the case of Deutschland, Germany mentioned above, they may be cognate words which have diverged in pronunciation or orthography, or they may be fully or partially translated from the native language. For example, London is known as Londres in French, Spanish and Portuguese, Londino (???d???) in Greek, Londen in Dutch, Londra in Italian, Romanian and Turkish, Londýn in Czech and Slovak, Londyn in Polish, Lundúnir in Icelandic, and Lontoo in Finnish. An example of a translated exonym is the name Soviet Union.[2]
Exonyms can also be divided into native and borrowed (i.e., from a third language). For example, Slovene uses the native exonyms Dunaj (Vienna) and Benetke (Venice), but the exonyms Kijev (Kiev) and Vilna (Vilnius), borrowed from Russian and Polish, respectively.
Exonyms develop for places of special significance for speakers of the language of the exonym. Consequently, most European capitals have English exonyms, e.g. Athens (????a/Athína), Belgrade (???????/Beograd), Bucharest (Bucuresti), Brussels (Bruxelles, Brussel), Copenhagen (København), Lisbon (Lisboa), Moscow (??????/Moskva), Nicosia (?e???s?a/Lefkosía), Prague (Praha), Rome (Roma), Vienna (Wien) or Warsaw (Warszawa). Madrid, with identical names in most major European languages, is an exception. For places considered to be of lesser significance, attempts to reproduce local names have been made in English since the time of the Crusades. Livorno, to take an instance, was Leghorn because it was an Italian port essential to English merchants and, by the 18th century, to the British Navy. Not far away, Rapallo, a minor port on the same sea, never received an exonym.
