From Bohemia (Czech Republic), named after the Celtic Boii — French 'bohémien' went from Bohemian to Romani to unconventional artist.
Socially unconventional in an artistic way; a person, especially an artist or writer, who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules and practices.
From French 'bohémien' (a native of Bohemia; a Gypsy; an unconventional person). Bohemia is a historical region in the western Czech Republic. The French called the Romani people 'bohémiens' because they were believed (incorrectly) to have come from Bohemia when they first arrived in France in the fifteenth century. By the nineteenth century, French writers
The chain of associations is remarkable: a Celtic Iron Age tribe (the Boii) gave their name to a Central European region (Bohemia), which the French misapplied to the Romani people, which French writers then reapplied to unconventional artists. Puccini's opera 'La Bohème' (1896) cemented the romantic image. The modern abbreviation 'boho' (bohemian-chic) continues the chain into twenty-first-century fashion