Where Did State Names Come From?

• The names of 27 states originate with Native American words. Seven are named after royalty, and one is named after a president. Let’s look at some history behind state names.

• There were 31 different ways to spell Alabama, starting with three of the men who accompanied Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1540, who spelled it variously “Alibau” or “Alibamo” or “Limanu” all based on the Choctaw words “alba” meaning “plants” and “amo” meaning “gatherer.”

• Delaware was named after Lord De La Warr, the English politician who served as governor of the colony of Virginia.

• With 34,000 miles of shoreline, it’s no wonder Alaska is named for the Aleurian word for “shore” which is “alaxsxaq.”

• “Colorado” comes from the Spanish term meaning “reddish color,” referring to the color of both the dirt and the river.

Red rocks color the landscape near Grand Junction, Colorado.

• A Spanish novel written around the year 1510 detailed the exploits of the powerful son of King Amadis of Gaul as he explored an imaginary island that was full of gold and ruled by strong and beautiful black women who kept griffins as pets. The name of the island in the book is “California” which probably came from the word “Khalifa” which means “successor” in Arabic. When Cortez reached the shores of what he thought was a large island, he named it California after the fictional island. Only later was it discovered that Cortez had actually landed on the peninsula of Baja, rather than on an island.

• The Mohegan word “quinnehtukqut” (or various spellings thereof) means “beside the long tidal river” and came to be our Connecticut.

• The Spanish celebrate “Pascua florida” around Easter time, meaning “the feast of the flowers.” Because explorer Ponce de Leon landed on the day of Pascua florida, and because the land was full of flowers, he named it Florida.

• In 1732, King George II of England asked British philanthropist James Oglethorpe to name the new colony after him, and that new colony is now Georgia.

• French explorer Father Jacques Marquette was one of the first Europeans to reach the Midwest region. The native people he met there called themselves “Ilinois” meaning “tribe of superior men” or “warriors.” We now spell it Illinois.

• The name "Indiana" means "Land of the Indians." After the French lost the French and Indian War in 1763, the English took over the territory that would include latter-day Indiana.

• La Salle was the French explorer who followed the Mississippi River all the way from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed the entire area for French ruler King Louis XIV, and named the territory appropriately. Today the state of Louisiana is the only portion of the region that retains the original name.

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• Maine is the only state with a single-syllable name. Because there are over 3,000 islands off the coast of the state, the name probably refers to the fact that the state itself is the “main” land.

• Maryland was named after Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of England’s King Charles I.

• “Massachusetts” is an approximation of the Native American term meaning “near the big hills.”