Are Brunswick locals Brunswegians or Brunswickians?

Brunswegian and Brunswickian are demonyms for people who live in Brunswick. Demonyms are nouns that are ‘used to denote a person who inhabits a particular place’. They usually derive from the name of the place.

It seems that it is not unusual for there to be some contention amidst communities regarding their preferred demonym. As Assistant professor Lauren Fonteyn (Lecturer in English Linguistics, Leiden University) explains to David Astle in this ABC conversation, the residents of the US city of Michigan are divided on whether they are Michiganians (56%) or Michiganders (44%).

Barry York, researcher, writer and long-time Brunswegian, provides his opinion in his article Brunswegian or Brunswickian in the Brunswick Daily:

‘I grew up in Brunswick for 30 years from the mid-1950s. On the rare occasions when I heard other locals refer to their suburb’s demonym, it was always consistently ‘Brunsweigan’. It is only in very recent times that I have heard the term Brunswickian used. To me, Brunswickian is not the right word but that’s partly due to sentimental reasoning and partly because it just doesn’t flow nicely, to my ear. I like the soft ‘g’ in Brunswegian.’