Editing Endonym and exonym (section)

=== In avoiding exonyms ===
During the late 20th century, the use of exonyms often became controversial. Groups often prefer that outsiders avoid exonyms where they have come to be used in a [[pejorative]] way. For example, [[Romani people]] often prefer that term to exonyms such as ''[[names of the Romani people#Gypsy and gipsy|Gypsy]]'' (from the name of [[Egypt]]), and the French term {{lang|fr|[[bohemianism|bohémien]], bohème}} (from the name of [[Bohemia]]).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Challa |first1=Janaki |title=Why Being 'Gypped' Hurts The Roma More Than It Hurts You |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/why-being-gypped-hurts-the-roma-more-than-it-hurts-you |publisher=[[NPR]] |access-date=18 September 2023 |quote="Hancock tells me the word "gypsy" itself is an "exonym" – a term imposed upon an ethnic group by outsiders. When the Roma people moved westward from India towards the European continent, they were mistaken to be Egyptian because of their features and dark skin. We see the same phenomenon across several languages, not only English. Victor Hugo, in his epic Hunchback of Notre Dame, noted that the Medieval French term for the Roma was egyptiens. In Spanish, the word for gypsy is "gitano," which comes from the word egipcio, meaning Egyptian – in Romanian: tigan, in Bulgarian: tsiganin, in Turkish: cingene – all of which are variations of slang words for "Egyptian" in those languages.“}}</ref> People may also avoid exonyms for reasons of historical sensitivity, as in the case of German names for Polish and Czech places that, at one time, had been ethnically or politically German (e.g. Danzig/[[Gdańsk]], Auschwitz/[[Oświęcim]] and Karlsbad/[[Karlovy Vary]]); and Russian names for non-Russian locations that were subsequently renamed or had their spelling changed (e.g. Kiev/[[Kyiv]]).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Van der Meulen |first1=Martin |title=Why I Will Never Again Refer to the Ukrainian Capital City as Kiev |date=19 April 2022 |url=https://www.the-low-countries.com/article/why-i-will-never-again-refer-to-the-ukrainian-capital-city-as-kiev |publisher=The Low Countries |access-date=18 September 2023}}</ref>

In recent years, [[geographer]]s have sought to reduce the use of exonyms to avoid this kind of problem. For example, it is now common for Spanish speakers to refer to the Turkish capital as [[Ankara]] rather than use the Spanish exonym {{lang|es|Angora}}.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Luxán |first1=Marga Azcárate |last2=Tagle |first2=Bárbara Alonso |title=EXONYMS IN SPANISH Criteria and usage in cartography |url=https://www.ign.es/resources/acercaDe/libDigPub/exonyms_in_spanish.pdf |publisher=NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE OF SPAIN (IGN) |access-date=18 September 2023}}</ref> Another example, it is now common for Italian speakers to refer to some African states as [[Mauritius]] and [[Seychelles]] rather than use the Italian exonyms ''Maurizio'' and ''Seicelle''.<ref>Sandro Toniolo, ''I perché e i nomi della geografia'', Istituto Geografico Militare, Florence 2005, p. 88–89, n. 170-171.</ref> According to the [[United Nations Statistics Division]]:

<blockquote>Time has, however, shown that initial ambitious attempts to rapidly decrease the number of exonyms were over-optimistic and not possible to realise in an intended way. The reason would appear to be that many exonyms have become common words in a language and can be seen as part of the language's cultural heritage.</blockquote>