first used in 1900 by those living outside the Paris region

The name "Paris" derives from that of its earliest inhabitants, the Gaulish tribe known as the Parisii. The city was called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii"), during the Roman era of the 1st to the 4th century AD, but during the reign of Julian the Apostate (360–3), the city was renamed Paris.[8] It is believed that the name of the Parisii tribe comes from the Celtic Gallic word parisio, meaning "the working people" or "the craftsmen".[9]
Paris has many nicknames, like "The City of Love", but its most famous is "La Ville-Lumière" ("The City of Light"),[10] a name it owes first to its fame as a centre of education and ideas during the Age of Enlightenment. The sobriquet's "light" took on a more literal sense when Paris became one of the first European cities to adopt gas street lighting: the Passage des Panoramas was Paris' first gas-lit throughfare from 1817.[11]
Since the mid-19th century, Paris has been known as Paname ([panam]) in the Parisian slang called argot (Ltspkr.pngMoi j'suis d'Paname, i.e. "I'm from Paname").[12] The singer Renaud repopularised the term among the younger generation with his 1976 album Amoureux de Paname ("In love with Paname").[13]
Inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as Parisiens ([pa?izj?~] ( listen)) and Parisiennes. Parisians are often pejoratively called Parigots ([pa?igo] ( listen)) and Parigotes, a term first used in 1900 by those living outside the Paris region.[14]
History[edit source | editbeta]

Main article: History of Paris


The frigidarium of the Gallo-Roman baths Thermes de Cluny
Origins[edit source | editbeta]
The earliest archaeological signs of permanent settlements in the Paris area date from around 4500–4200 BC,[15] with some of the oldest evidence of canoe-use by hunter-gatherer peoples being uncovered in Bercy in 1991[16] (The remains of three canoes can be seen at the Carnavalet Museum[17] · [18]). The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the area near the river Seine from around 250 BC,[19][20] building a trading settlement on the island, later the Île de la Cité, the easiest place to cross.[21] The Romans conquered the Paris basin around 52 BC,[15] with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the left bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and the Île de la Cité. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia, or Lutetia Parisorum but later Gallicised to Lutèce.[22] It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.[23]
The collapse of the Roman empire, along with the Germanic invasions of the 5th-century, sent the city into a period of decline. By 400 AD, Lutèce was largely abandoned by its inhabitants, little more than a garrison town entrenched into a hastily fortified central island.[15] The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation, around 360 AD, when Julian the Apostate, Prefect of the Gauls, was proclaimed emperor.[24] The proclamation was made on the Île de la Cité. Julian remained based there for three years, making Paris the de facto capital of the Western Empire