Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A name by which a people or social group refers to itself.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In anthropology, the name by which a people call themselves.
  • noun One's own name; a real name: opposed to pseudonym and anonym.
  • noun That which bears one's own name, as a book published under the author's real name.
  • noun The self-same name; one and the same name for two or more things; a homonym.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun taxonomy An infraspecific name in which the species epithet is repeated.
  • noun linguistics, anthropology A name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language, as opposed to a name given to them by other groups.
  • noun The true name of a person or other entity, especially an author.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[aut(o)– + –onym.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

auto- "self" + -onym "name"

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Examples

Comments

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  • autonym – the self-assigned name of an ethnic group; self-appellation

    July 19, 2008

  • Also: a fit name for an Autobot.

    November 23, 2008

  • JM always uses an autonym for privacy reasons

    June 17, 2010