Rubin: Nickname for Michigan residents might be confusing — but Massachusetts has it worse

It seems like forever since we've debated what people from Michigan should call themselves. ( Closer to a month .)

The answer, of course, is Michiganders. (Or Michiganians. Whatever.)

I bring this up because according to a new report, Michigan has the fifth-most-confusing nickname for its residents of all 49 states. (Or 50, if you insist on counting Ohio.)

The report comes from a QR code generator called qrfy.com that tracked Google searches along the lines of, "What do you call people from South Dakota, and why on Earth would you want to know?" (Statistically dubious.)

For verification, it relies on the lengthy handbook of the U.S. Government Printing Office, which decrees that we are Michiganians and also that residents of the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau are Bissau-Guinean. (Love that.)

The most confusing state, it says, is Massachusetts. Given that the preferred term is "Massachusettsan" and the runners-up include "Massachusettsian," yeah, OK, I'll buy it.

The Massachusetts state government, understandably tired of spelling Massachusetts, also authorizes "Bay Staters." They could tack on "First-state-to-take-a-name-from-Native-Americans-the-same-way-they-swiped-the-real-estaters," but that's probably too long for newspaper headlines or tweets.

Personally, I'd go with Massachusetts-ettes. (I wasn't asked.)

Gratuitous slaps at our southern neighbor

Words like Alabamian (15th on the list) and Arizonan (27th) are what's known as demonyms, from the Greek "demos" (people or common soldiers) and "onyma" (name). Onyma, as it happens, is also how footraces begin in Alabama: "Onyamarks, get set ..."

In second place on the search list behind Massachusetts is Utah, followed by Connecticut and Illinois. Though the athletic teams at the universities of Utah and Illinois are the Utes and Illini, the states' demonyms are the much less creative Utahn and Illinoisan.

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For Connecticut, the term is Connecticuters, with alternatives including Connecticutian, Connecticuteer and the even more ungainly Connecticutensian. (Suggestion for Connecticutensians: Move to Massachusetts.)

While we're only fifth on the list, we're probably No. 1 for hostility toward whichever demonym you don't prefer.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Gov. Rick Snyder, for the record, say Michigander, while the three governors before them all said Michiganian. No one with the sense God gave a person from Ohio says "Michiganite," but it's out there, probably buried in Capital Park downtown with Stevens T. Mason.

Mason was only 24 when he took office as our state's first elected governor in 1835. He oversaw the compromise that gave Michigan the western two-thirds of the Upper Peninsula in exchange for greater Toledo, and which led to eighth-ranked Ohio's official demonym, "Baja Michigan."

North Dakota and naked biking

The report that inspired all of this foolishness determined that the Michigan question is asked 1,441 times per month, compared with 2,073 for Massachusetts and all of 40 for the least-searched and most obvious result, "South Dakotan."

Hovering above South Dakota for least confusing, from No. 41 on down, are Delawarean, Pennsylvanian, Virginian, South Carolinian, Rhode Islander, Mississippian, North Dakotan, Nebraskan and West Virginian.

It's unclear why North Dakotan is more of a puzzle than South Dakotan, or why Wyomingite — from a state with about the same population as Allen Park — is one step more confusing than No. 12 on the list, Wisconsinite.

It's also unclear how the compilers of the data know that the online searchers were confused, which makes the entire list about as authoritative as the Golden Globes.

Similar reports bobbing around my inbox contend that Detroit has the fourth-highest inflation problem among major cities, that it's fifth among cities with the largest credit score increases, that it's the second-worst city for renters, that golf is the 10th-most-dangerous sport in the United States, that no Michigan cities are among the 10 best or worst for naked bicycling, and that the Olive Garden in Warren is the second-worst for customer satisfaction in the entire country.

The worst, according to ratings on Trip Advisor and Google, is in Beachwood, Ohio.

(That figures.)

Neal Rubin does not actually have anything against Ohioans, or at least, not much. He does, however, retain ancient grudges against certain rival high schools. Reach him at NARubin@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Rubin: Nickname for Michigan residents might be confusing — but Massachusetts has it worse