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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