# City or country names that are male nouns



## cheshire

I've read that city names and country names are mostly female nouns. Could you give me male nouns for cities and countries?


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## Jellby

What language are you talking about? The gender of words usually depends on the language.

In Spanish:
El Salvador -> The Saviour, a male noun, of course.
Ecuador -> "ecuador" = "equator" is a masculine word.
Santiago -> Saint James, another male noun
San Diego -> Saint James, too
San Francisco -> Saint Francis
Sacramento -> "sacramento" = "sacrament" is a masculine word.
Los Angeles -> The Angels, masculine plural
...


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## cheshire

Thanks, Latin country or city names are almost all female nouns, I read.
Are there exceptions for Latin city or country names?


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## Dimitris

Jellby said:


> What language are you talking about? The gender of words usually depends on the language.
> 
> In Spanish:
> El Salvador -> The Saviour, a male noun, of course.
> Ecuador -> "ecuador" = "equator" is a masculine word.
> Santiago -> Saint James, another male noun
> San Diego -> Saint James, too
> San Francisco -> Saint Francis
> Sacramento -> "sacramento" = "sacrament" is a masculine word.
> Los Angeles -> The Angels, masculine plural
> ...



I was surprised when i realised that Madrid is a masculine noun in spanish.



cheshire said:


> Are there exceptions for Latin city or country names?



What about Complutum?Can anyone tell us about the gender of this name?It sounds masculine to me but i'm probably wrong.


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## cajzl

All nouns ending with -um in sing. or -a in plur. are neutre.
e.g.
Bactrum, i, n.
Bactra, orum, n.


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## cajzl

The names of rivers are usually masculine:
e.g.
Sequana, ae, m. (Seine)

In the Latin language, of course.


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## minicooper

in greek *most* country names are feminine.
but there are also enough neutral.
very few exceptions like Panama, Canada are masculine.

same with the names of greek cities, the majority is faminine, then some neutral and masculine....


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## Outsider

_Aegyptus_ (Egypt) was masculine.


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## konungursvia

Saragossa was masculine (Caesar Augustus).


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## Thomas1

In Polish we have some too:
Salwador - Salvador
Ekwador - Equador
Meksyk - Mexico
Egipt - Egypt
Paryż- Paris
Rzym -Rome



Tom


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## amikama

In Hebrew *all* the country and city names are always feminine (and singular). One of the few rules with no exceptions at all...


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## Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Oddly enough, the vast majority of "masculine" countries in Czech is in the Third World.
Irák, Írán, Omán, Katar, Jemen, Egypt, Súdán, Čad, Niger, Kamerun, Gabon, Senegal, Mozambik, Madagaskar, various -stán's, Ázerbajdžán, Vietnam, Laos, Nepál, Bhútán, Ekvádor, Honduras, Surinam. The only exceptions I can think of are Tchaj-wan, Nový Zéland, and Island (Iceland).


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## Jellby

Dimitris said:


> I was surprised when i realised that Madrid is a masculine noun in spanish.



It is not. It does not really have a gender. It's often used with feminine adjectives, because they agree with the "hidden" noun for city, but since it does not have an obvious masculine ending, you can use masculine adjectives too.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

In Slovene
all country names ending on -ija and -ska are feminine and ending on -stan are masculine. Further those ending on -a like Kanada, Panama, Argentina, Andora are obviously feminine. Then there are other names like those mentioned above in Tekeli-li!'s post... those are all masculine as they are Israel, Lichtenstein, Luksemburg, Vatikan, San Marino, Monako, etc.

Names of the settlements can be of any gender and any number. It depends on the name itself and there's no hidden generic gender of the general word for town/city (_mesto_; neut.) or settlement (_kraj_; masc.) or village (_vas_; fem.).
Ljubljana, Lizbona, Praga are sing. feminine
Rim, Berlin, Madrid, Pariz, London are sing. masculine
Oslo is sing. neuter
Helsinki is pl. masc. 
Atene is pl. femin.


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## cajzl

> Aegyptus (Egypt) was masculine.


Aegyptus is feminine (e.g. Aegyptus fecunda).



> Saragossa was masculine (Caesar Augustus).


I think it was Caesaraugusta (or Caesar Augusta) - feminine.

The Latin rule about cities, countries, islands and rivers is notorious.

The only exception I remeber are *Delphi, orum, m*.

And, of course, the names ending with -um (-a in plur.) like Complutum, Bactrum (Bactra pl.), which are neutre.


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## cheshire

Thanks folks,
cajzl, why did you say "notorious"?
Why is "Aegyptus" feminine despite its "-us" ending?


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## cajzl

I wrote "notorious" as you can find such rules in every Latin textbook.

Aegyptus is feminine as it is a name of a country (Aegyptus can be also masculine, then it means a name of a man). Ask the Old Romans why.

Also the names of trees are nearly always feminine (and usually o-stem or u-stem nouns):

malus, fagus, quercus, populus, etc. (e.g. popul*us* alt*a*)


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## apmoy70

cheshire said:


> Thanks folks,
> cajzl, why did you say "notorious"?
> Why is "Aegyptus" feminine despite its "-us" ending?


Because the Latin Aegyptus derives from the Greek "ἡ Αἴγυπτος" (feminine noun of 2nd declension) which in turn derives from "Αἰγαίου ὑπτίως" according to Strabo, which means "the land (always feminine in Greek) that lies below the Aegean Sea"


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## federicoft

In Italian most European countries are feminine (with some exceptions: Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, United Kingdom). As regards the rest of the world, I can't really discern any pattern, although masculine names seem to be more common to me.

City names are always feminine. I can think of just one city that gets a compulsory masculine article (_Il Cairo_), although it is described by feminine adjectives as any other city.


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## kusurija

In Czech:
A lot of cities in ČR and Slovakia is masculine, here You are only some of them (centres):
Bardejov, Benešov, Beroun, Bruntál, Břeclav, Český Krumlov, Děčín, Dolný Kubín, Frýdek-Místek, Havlíčkův Brod, Hodonín, Hradec Krákové, Cheb, Chomutov, JJablonec nad Nisou, Jičín, (Nový Jičín), Jindřichův Hradec, Kolín, Liberec, Liptovský Mikuláš, Lučenec, Martin, Mělník, Most, Náchod, Nymburk, Pelhřimov, Pžsek, Poprad, Prešov, Prostějov, Přerov, Rakovník, Rychnov, Sokolov, Svidník, Šumperk, Tábor, Tachov, Trebišov, Trenčín, Trutnov, Veľký Krtíš, Vranov, Vsetín, Vyškov, Zlín, Zvolen, Žďár nad Sázavou, Žiar nad Hronom, ... ...
Names of foreign cities e.g. Berlín, Bonn, Hamburg, Istambul, Lisabon, Londýn, Madrid, Mnichov, Řím, Stockholm, ... ...
Most of coutries are neutrum; in masculine e.g. Island, Nový Zéland, Vatikán, ... ...


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## Outsider

In Portuguese, there are a couple of masculine city names: Porto, Funchal, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Lobito, Huambo... These are typically names formed by the conversion of a pre-existing noun that was already masculine.

Most city names are feminine.


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## Nanon

A strange thing happens in French - when some country names are borrowed but retain their original form (except for accents), they change gender. This often happens with Spanish _feminine_ country names ending in -a, which become _masculine_ in French: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela...


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## origumi

amikama said:


> In Hebrew *all* the country and city names are always feminine (and singular). One of the few rules with no exceptions at all...


It would be more appropriate to say that in Hebrew countries and cities has no gender. It's the words "country" and "city" themselves which are feminine singular, and therefore this is how countries and cities are usually handled.

Would you say the איחוד האמירויות, the United Arabic Emirates, is feminine? or that ארצות הברית, the United States, is singular? or that the 10 or so island-countries like איי פיג'י, the Fiji Islands, are either feminine or singular?


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## amikama

origumi said:


> Would you say the איחוד האמירויות, the United Arabic Emirates, is feminine? or that ארצות הברית, the United States, is singular? or that the 10 or so island-countries like איי פיג'י, the Fiji Islands, are either feminine or singular?


OK, maybe there are exceptions after all... But ארצות הברית is definitely not an exception - it's singular (and feminine), despite its plural form. And if you say just פיג'י (not איי פיג'י) - it's singular and feminine too.


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## Staarkali

In French, most of the countries of the Americas are masculine: _le Canada, les Etats-Unis_ (because we say _un état_), _le Mexique, le Brésil, le Chili, _etc_._
however, _la Colombie _and _l'Argentine_.


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## sokol

In German country and city names usually are *neuter *- I had to think about what gender name they actually have and needed to put an adjective before some before I was sure  (golden*es* Prag, schön*es* Österreich, etc.).

Some are feminie:* die* Vereinigten Staaten (= USA), also: *die *USA. Usually country and city names are *not *used with articles*) but some are, usually acronyms - and those are feminine; same with (now nonexistant): *die *UdSSR (SSSR), *die *EU (European Union).
*) Except in combination with an adjective: *das *schöne Prag - here again: neuter.

Some plural names like Emirates too are feminine: *die *Emirate.
Also if a feminine noun is combined with the name then too feminine gender will apply: die Stadt (f.) Wien, *die *Bundesrepublik (f.) Deutschland.

The rule thus seems to be: with article = feminine, without = neuter. *No masculine *genders that I could think of right now except if you combine the name with a masculine noun (which really would be cheating  - like: "der deutsche Bundesstaat").


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## Grop

In France many cities are named after male saints. In my place for instance, you have Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée, Saint-Martin-de-Vésubie, Saint-Martin-du-Var, Saint-Laurent-du-Var, etc.

(Where Tinée, Vésubie and Var are rivers).

However, these cities names are still of feminine gender, just like any city name.


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## sokol

Grop said:


> However, these cities names are still of feminine gender, just like any city name.


Same in German where equally cities with male saints' names do not change gender; "Sankt Martin" still is "das schöne Sankt Martin" = neuter as other cities would be in German.


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## enoo

Grop said:


> However, these cities names are still of feminine gender, just like any city name.



Really? Would one say "Saint-Martin-du-Var est illuminé*e* le soir."? I find it a bit strange, but well, maybe 

I wonder if in France it is maybe just related to the gender the word. (appart from countries names, that do not seems to follow any pattern).
"Ville / Cité" (town, city) are feminine words, and cities are mostly feminine. Village is a masculine word, and village names are masculine.
(Now I wonder what happens for a village that grows very large and become a town.)


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## Grop

You are right, Saint-Martin-du-Var is quite smallish, and can be of masculine gender, if you think of it as a village as opposed to a city (both would be true). But this is quite independant from the fact it is named after a male saint.

Saint-Laurent-du-Var is too big to be considered a village, and is clearly of feminine gender.


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## sokol

Grop said:


> You are right, Saint-Martin-du-Var is quite smallish, and can be of masculine gender, if you think of it as a village as opposed to a city (both would be true). But this is quite independant from the fact it is named after a male saint.
> 
> Saint-Laurent-du-Var is too big to be considered a village, and is clearly of feminine gender.


So you're saying that a village may take gender from "le village" (m.) (even if "village" isn't mentioned in the actual context) while a town will inevitably have female gender as it is "la ville (or: cité)" (f.), again "ville" supporting gender of the town?

If so then I can add: it is the same in German. Only that in German it is "das Dorf" (neuter) and "die Stadt" (fem.).


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## Grop

sokol said:


> So you're saying that a village may take gender from "le village" (m.) (even if "village" isn't mentioned in the actual context) while a town will inevitably have female gender as it is "la ville (or: cité)" (f.), again "ville" supporting gender of the town?



Exactement.

A small place like Saint-Martin-du-Var may either be viewed as a village (typically as a small place, attractive to tourists) of masculine gender or as a town or city (typically in a legal context, like they have a mayor and local taxes) of feminine gender.

(I don't really see the difference between English town and city, especially when applied to French places).

Also, gender of cities in French is quite tricky, as discussed in this thread: FR: genre des villes.


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## Cosol

Nanon said:


> A strange thing happens in French - when some country names are borrowed but retain their original form (except for accents), they change gender. This often happens with Spanish _feminine_ country names ending in -a, which become _masculine_ in French: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela...


The same happens in Italian: _Il Costa Rica, Il Nicaragua, Il Venezuela_.


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