Origin of State Names - Barrington High School
Origin of State Names
|Alabama |May come from the Choctaw words “Alba” and “Amo” or Alibamu meaning “vegetation-gatherers, or “I clear the thicket.” |
|Alaska |Derived from the Native American Aleut word “Alyeska” meaning “great-land” or “that which the sea breaks against.” |
|Arizona |May come from the Papago Indian words “Aleh” and “Zon” words meaning”small spring” or “little spring.” |
|Arkansas |From the name of a local Indian tribe, the Quapaw: called Arkansea (south wind) by other tribes |
|California |May come from a fictional / mythical Spanish island ruled by a queen called Califia that was featured in a 16th century-Spanish |
| |romance novel. The Spanish explorers originally thought that California may have been an island. |
|Colorado |Comes from the Spanish word meaning “ruddy” or “red” |
| |– after the Colorado River |
|Connecticut |Reference to the Connecticut River. From the Indian name “Quinnehtukqut” meaning “beside the long tidal river.” |
|Delaware |State and the Indian tribe - both named after the Delaware River. The river was named after Sir Thomas West (Lord de la Warr). |
|District of Columbia |Named for its location on the land of the Territory of Columbia. |
|Florida |Ponce de Leon named the land La Florida in honor of “Pascua Florida” - meaning “feast of flowers” (at Easter-time in Spain). |
|Georgia |Named in honor of King George II of England - in 1733. |
|Hawaii |May have been named after the traditional discoverer of the islands, Hawaii Loa. May also be a combination of the words “Hawa” |
| |meaning “homeland” and “ii” meaning “small and raging.” May have been named after Hawaiki - the traditional home of the |
| |Polynesians. |
|Idaho |The name “Idaho” was used for a steamship which traveled the Columbia River. Possibly an invented word that was made to sound |
| |Indian. Usually thought to mean “gem of the mountains.” |
|Illinois |From the French version of the Indian word “Illiniwek” - Algonquin Indian for “tribe of superior men.” |
|Indiana |Indiana was the name given to the Indiana Territory by the United States Congress when Indiana was created from the Northwest |
| |Territory in 1800. It means “Land of Indians.” |
|Iowa |The Iowa River was named after the Iowa Indians who lived in the territory. The tribal name “Ayuxwa” was spelled by the French |
| |as “Ayoua” and by the English as “Ioway.” Ayuxwa means “one who puts to sleep,” or “beautiful land” or “this is the place.” |
|Kansas |The Kansas River was named by the French after the Sioux Word “KaNze.” KaNze means in the Kansas tribal language “south wind.” |
| |The Kansas tribe was “the people of the south wind.” |
|Kentucky |The origin is unclear. It could come from the Wyandot Indian name for “plain” or it could come from an Iroquoian word |
| |“Ken-tah-ten” meaning “land of tomorrow.” |
|Louisiana |The French explorer named the area La Louisianne in honor of King Louis XIV of France in 1682. |
|Maine |First used to distinguish the mainland from the offshore islands. It has been considered a compliment to Henrietta Maria, queen |
| |of Charles I of England. She was said to have owned the province of Mayne in France. |
|Maryland |Named in honor of King Charles’ wife Queen Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary). |
|Massachusetts |The origin is unclear. The Jesuit missionary Father Rasles thought that it came from the word Messatossec: “mess” means “great”,|
| |“atsco” Means “hill”, and “sec” means “mouth.” The Reverend John Cotton used another variation: “mos” and “wetuset” meaning |
| |“Indian arrowhead.” descriptive of the Native Americans hill home. Another explanation is that the word comes from “massa” |
| |meaning “great” and “wachusett” meaning “mountain-place.” |
|Michigan |There are two possibilities. The Chippewa Indian word “majigan” which means “clearing” referred to a clearing on the lower |
| |peninsula. Lake Michigan was named by European explorers in the 1670s. It may have been named after this clearing or after the |
| |Indian word Michigana meaning “great or large lake.” |
|Minnesota |From the Dakota Indian word “mnishota.” Mnishota means “sky-tinted water” and refers to the cloudy or milky color of the river. |
|Mississippi |From the Chippewa Indian word meaning either “large river” or “Father of Waters.” |
|Missouri |Named after the Sioux Indian tribe of the region called “Missouris.” Missouri means “town of the large canoes.” The Indian |
| |syllables from which the word comes mean “wooden canoe people” or “he of the big canoe.” |
|Montana |Created out of the Idaho Territory in1864, the name Montana is derived from the Latin word “montaanus” meaning “mountainous.” |
|Nebraska |From the Omaha Indian word “ibôápka” meaning “broad river” and the French word for the Platte River that means “broad river.” |
|Nevada |Named by Spanish sailors for the Sierra Nevada mountains. Sierra Nevada was the name for the territory carved out of Utah but |
| |was shortened to Nevada in 1859. “Sierra Nevada” means “snowy range.” |
|New Hampshire |Named by John Mason who was granted the land in 1692. He named it after the English county of Hampshire where he spent several |
| |years as a boy. |
|New Jersey |Named by Sir John Berkley and Sir George Carteret who were given the land by a royal charter. It is named after the Isle of |
| |Jersey in the English Channel. |
|New Mexico |The anglicized version of “Nuevo Mexico,” the Spanish name for the upper Rio Grande. Mexico means “place of Mexitli,” an Aztec |
| |god. |
|New York |Named in honor of the Duke of York and Albany, the brother of England’s King Charles II in 1664 when the British took the land |
| |from the Dutch. The Dutch had called it New Amsterdam. |
|North Carolina |Named in honor of Charles IX of France and Charles II of England. Carolina is rooted in Latin and comes from the word |
| |“Caroliinus.” This word is derived from the name Carolus translated as “Charles.” |
|North Dakota |North and South Dakota were one territory until 1889 inhabited by the Dakota tribe of the Sioux Indians. “Dakota” is the Sioux |
| |Indian word for “friend” or “allies.” |
|Ohio |From the Iroqois Indian word meaning “large” or “great” or “beautiful” river. |
|Oklahoma |Means “red person.” Allen Wright combined two Choctaw words, “ukla” meaning “person” and “humá” meaning “red” to form the word |
| |that first appears in a 1866 Choctaw treaty. |
|Oregon |Unknown. It is most likely named after one of two rivers: the Columbia River, which forms a coastline along the northern border,|
| |was once called Oregon or Ouragon, which is French for hurricane. The Wisconsin River was named the Ouisconsink, and travelers |
| |referred to the country west of the Great Lakes as Ourigan. Another generally accepted explanation is the name was taken from |
| |the writings of Major Robert Rogers an English officer in a map making error. It was first used by John Caver in 1778. |
|Pennsylvania |In honor of Admiral Sir Wm. Penn, the father of Wm. Penn. The word “Sylvania” is Latin and means “Woodland.” The name Penn |
| |Sylvania was specified in the charter given to Wm. Penn by Charles II of England in 1600. |
|Rhode Island |Uncertain. It could come from the Greek Island of Rhodes. The Dutch used the words “Roodt Eylandt” meaning “red island” in |
| |reference to the red clay that lines the shore. The name was anglicized when the region came under British rule. |
|South Carolina |Named in honor of Charles IX of France and Charles II of England. Carolina is rooted in Latin and comes from the word |
| |“Caroliinus.” This word is derived from the name Carolus translated as “Charles.” |
|South Dakota |North and South Dakota were one territory until 1889 inhabited by the Dakota tribe of the Sioux Indians. “Dakota” is the Sioux |
| |Indian word for “friend” or “allies.” |
|Tennessee |Of Cherokee origin. Originally “Tanasi” the Little Tennessee River took its name from two Cherokee villages on its banks. |
|Texas |Comes from the word “teysha” meaning “hello friend” in the Caddo Indian language. Spanish explorers and settlers used this word |
| |to refer to the friendly tribes throughout Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. |
|Utah |Navajo Indians were referred to by the Apache as “yuttahih” meaning “one that is higher up.” Europeans misunderstood this term |
| |to refer to the tribes living higher in the mountains than the Navajo, the Utes, and the territory was called the land of the |
| |Utes, Utah. |
|Vermont |An English form of the name that French explorer Samuel de Champlain gave to Vermont’s Green Mountains on his 1647 map. He |
| |called them “Verd Mont” meaning “green mountain” in French. |
|Virginia |Named in 1584 in honor of Queen Elizabeth of England, who was popularly called the “Virgin Queen.” |
|Washington |The Washington Territory, established in 1853 was named to honor George Washington. |
|West Virginia |In 1861 Virginia split into two states, Virginia and West Virginia. Virginia was named in honor of the “Virgin Queen,” Queen |
| |Elisabeth. |
|Wisconsin |A French corruption of an Indian word whose meaning is disputed. It could be the Chippewa word for “grassy place.” The Wisconsin|
| |River was named the Ouisconsink by French travelers. |
|Wyoming |From the Delaware Indian word meaning “mountains and valleys alternating;” the same as the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Legh |
| |Freeman, publisher of The Frontier Index in Kearny, Nebraska claimed that he was the first to suggest the name Wyoming for this |
| |part of the Dakota Territory. “Wyoming” comes from the Dakota language word “mscheweamiing” which means “at the big flats” or |
| |“large plains.” |
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