Citonym

Citonym is a neologism used in onomastics and geographic information science to denote the language-specific form of a city name that is used as a canonical reference in multilingual data environments. The term combines city, from the Latin-derived root related to urban names, with the suffix -onym, meaning name.

Definition and scope: A citonym refers to the standardized city-name form selected for use in a given language or dataset to identify a city unambiguously across linguistic boundaries. It is intended to support consistent data handling in maps, databases, and search systems, and to complement broader naming concepts such as toponyms and demonyms.

Distinctions: A toponym is any place name. An endonym is the local or native form of a name in its own language, while an exonym is a name used by outsiders in another language. A citonym, by contrast, designates a designated canonical form adopted for consistency within information systems, which may align with the endonym or with a standardized external convention.

Applications: In geographic information systems, multilingual gazetteers, and localization workflows, citonyms help with search indexing, data interoperability, and user-facing interfaces by providing a predictable, language-aware city name form.

Status: The term is not widely standardized in scholarly or professional practice and remains primarily a concept in discussions of naming conventions for digital mapping and multilingual data stewardship.

See also: toponym, endonym, exonym, demonym, gazetteer, geographic information system.