Which U.S. States Are Named After Kings and Queens? By Matt Rosenberg Updated August 10, 2016. Seven of the U.S. states are named after sovereigns - four are named for kings and three are named for queens. These include some of the oldest colonies and territories in what is now the United States and the royal names paid tribute to the rulers of either France and England. The list of states includes Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Can you guess which kings and queens inspired each name? The 'Carolinas' Have British Royalty Roots North and South Carolina have a long and complicated history. Two of the 13 original colonies, they began as a single colony but were divided shortly after because it was too much land to govern. The name 'Carolina' is often attributed as an honor of King Charles I of England (1625-1649), yet that is not entirely true. What is fact is that Charles is 'Carolus' in Latin and that inspired 'Carolina.' However, the French explorer, Jean Ribault first called the region Carolina when he tried colonizing Florida in the 1560's.

During that time, he established an outpost known as Charlesfort in what is now South Carolina. The French King at the time? Charles IX who was crowned in 1560. When the British colonists established their settlements in the Carolinas, it was shortly after the 1649 execution of King Charles I of England and they retained the name in his honor. When his son took over the crown in 1661, the colonies were also an honor to his rule. In a way, the Carolinas pay tribute to all three King Charles. 'Georgia' Was Inspired by a British King Georgia was one of the original 13 colonies that became the United States. It was the last colony established and it became official in 1732, just five years after King George II was crowned King of England. The name 'Georgia' was clearly inspired by the new king. The suffix -ia was used often by the colonizing nations when naming new lands in honor of important people. King George II did not live long enough to see his namesake become a state. He died in 1760 and was succeeded by his grandson, King George III, who reigned during the American Revolutionary War.

'Louisiana' Has French Origins In 1671, French explorers claimed a large portion of central North America for France. They named the area in honor of King Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 until his death in 1715. The name 'Louisiana' begins with a clear reference to the king. The suffix -iana is often used to refer to a collection of objects in regards to the collector. Therefore, we can loosely associate Louisiana as 'a collection of lands owned by King Louis XIV.' This territory became known as the Louisiana Territory and was purchased by Thomas Jefferson in 1803. In total, the Louisiana Purchase was for 828,000 square miles between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The state of Louisiana formed the southern border and became a state in 1812. 'Maryland' Was Named After a British Queen Maryland also has an association with King Charles I yet, in this case, it was named for his wife. George Calvert was granted a charter in 1632 for a region east of the Potomac. The first settlement was St. Mary's and the territory was named Maryland.

All of this was in honor of Henrietta Maria, queen consort of Charles I of England and daughter of King Henry IV of France. The 'Virginias' Were Named for a Virgin Queen Virginia (and subsequently West Virginia) was settled by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584. He named this new land after the English monarch of the time, Queen Elizabeth I. But how did he get 'Virginia' out of Elizabeth? Elizabeth I was crowned in 1559 and died in 1603. During her 44 years as queen , she never married and she earned the nickname of the "Virgin Queen." That is how the Virginia's got their name, but whether the monarch was true in her virginity is a matter of much debate and speculation. France-USA: French Place-Names in the United States "Every man has two countries, his own and France" -Thomas Jefferson. lundi 7 janvier 2008 French Place-Names in the United States Many places in the United States have names of French origin, a legacy of past French exploration and rule over much of the land and in honor of French help during the founding of the country.

Because most of you probably ignore that: Without the French Navy and Army, the U.S. would not even exist today. They’d have been beaten by the Brits at Yorktown.

Bay Minette, Alabama ("Cat Bay") Bayou la Batre, Alabama ("Bayou of the Battery") Belle Fontaine, Alabama ("Beautiful Fountain") Bon Secour, Alabama ("Safe Harbor") Citronelle, Alabama (named after the citrus trees.) DeKalb County Dauphin Island, Alabama (named after the Dauphin , French crown prince) Fayette County Mobile, Alabama (French pronunciation of the indigenous Mauvilla tribe) St Clair Juneau, Alaska named after Joseph Juneau, French-Canadian prospector and gold miner Arizona Picket Wire, Arizona (Corruption of French Purgatoire "Purgatory") Arkansas Arkansas (named by French explorers from Indian word meaning "south wind") Belleville, Arkansas Bois D'arc, Arkansas (local wood traded by the Native Americans) Fayetteville, Arkansas (named for French general, Marquis de LaFayette) Petit Jean, Arkansas (named after a French sailor on the Arkansas river) La Petite Roche, Arkansas (state capital, translated into "Little Rock"] Maumelle, Arkansas Ozark, Arkansas (phonetic rendering of either aux Arks, "of the Ark(ansas)" or aux Arcs, "of the arches", or possibly aux arcs-en

-ciel, "of the rainbows") Paris, Arkansas Smackover, Arkansas (Anglicization of Sumac Couvert , "covered in sumac") Terre Rouge, Arkansas Artois, California (named after Artois, France) Bel Air, California ("Good Air") Butte County Fremont, California (named for John C.

Frémont , American soldier, explorer and politician of French ancestry) Lafayette, California (named for the French general, Marquis de Lafayette) Montclair, California ("Clear Mountain") Colorado Laporte, Colorado (from la porte, "the door." One of several American communities named "La Porte," "Laporte" or "LaPorte." ) Delaware Delaware (named after Lord de la Warre (originally de la Guerre meaning; "of the war"), Florida Belandville, Florida (failed "colony" in northern Santa Rosa County, approximately one mile south of its border with Escambia County, Alabama) Collier county Duval County, Florida (named for William Pope DuVal ) La Belle, Florida ("The Beauty") Lafayette county Des Allemands, Louisiana ("of the Germans") Destrehan, Louisiana (named in honor of Jean N. Destréhan, Creole politician) Dulac, Louisiana ("of the lake") Grosse Tête, Louisiana ("big head") Lacassine Jean Lafitte, Louisiana (named for Jean Lafitte , a famous pirate) Lafayette, Louisiana (named for the Marquis de La Fayette.

There are a number of cities named either "Lafayette" or "Fayetteville" in the United States. ) Lafourche Parish, Louisiana (from la fourche, referring to a forked path) Lake Pontchartrain La Place, Louisiana (named for early settler Basile LaPlace.) La Salle Parish Mandeville, Louisiana (named for developer Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville) Metairie, Louisiana (from a French word for sharecropping ) New Orleans, Louisiana (named for Philip II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of France at the time of the city's founding) Orleans parish Pointe à la Hache, Louisiana ("Axe Point") Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana (from pointe coupée, "cut point") Rapides Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana ("Good Earth") Vermilion Parish Maine (one theory suggests the state was named after the historic French province of Maine) Calais, Maine Frenchville, Maine Paris, Maine Presque Isle, Maine (from the French word "presqu'île"meaning "peninsula"--- from presque meaning "almost", and isle meaning "island".

The town is surrounded on three sides by water, and therefore is "almost an island") Maryland L'État du Maryland est baptisée en l'honneur d'Henriette-Marie de France, fille d'Henri IV et épouse du roi d'Angleterre Charles Ier. Havre de Grace, Maryland (named after Le Havre (originally Le Havre de Grâce, lit.

harbour/haven of grace), France) montpelier Orleans, Massachusetts (named for Louis Philippe II, the Duke of Orleans ) Revere, Massachusetts (from Paul Revere, of Huguenot ancestry; his family name originally was Rivoire) Michigan Belleville, Michigan ("Beautiful City;" named for a Paris district) Benzie county Berrien County, Michigan Cadillac, Michigan (named after explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac) Charlevoix, Michigan (named for Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Jesuit in New France ) Detroit, Michigan ("Strait") Dozens of Detroit streets are named after early French settlers Ecorse, Michigan (from Rivière aux Écorces, "Bark River") Grand Blanc, Michigan ("Large White") Grand Marais, Michigan ("Large Marsh") Gratiot County, Michigan Grosse Ile, Michigan ("Big Island") Grosse Pointe, Michigan ("Big Point") Isle Royale National Park, Michigan ("Royal Island") L'Anse, Michigan ("The Cove") Marquette, Michigan (named after explorer Jacques Marquette) Montcalm County, Michigan (named for Louis-Joseph de Montcalm,

 French military commander in the French and Indian War).

Montmorency County, Michigan (named for the Montmorency family, a noble family influential in the administration of New France) Presque Isle, Michigan (from presqu'île, "peninsula") Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan ("St. Mary's Rapids") St. Clair County, Michigan St. Ignace, Michigan (French translation of St. Ignatius) St. Joseph, Michigan Pioche, Nevada (named for François Louis Alfred Pioche, financier who purchased the town in 1869) New Hampshire Fremont, New Hampshire (named for John C. Fremont , French-American pioneer and politician) New Jersey Le nom New Jersey provient de l'île anglo-normande de Jersey. Ce nom a été donné en l'honneur de Sir George Carteret, natif de Jersey, qui est l'un des deux hommes à qui la terre a été donnée. Bayonne, New Jersey (according to tradition, from Bayonne , France) Montclair, New Jersey ("Clear Mountain") New Mexico Bayard, New Mexico (named for George D.

Bayard, Union general in the Civil War of French ancestry) Clovis, New Mexico (named for Clovis, first Christian king of the Franks) New York Chateaugay, New York (named after Chateauguay, Quebec.) Dunkirk, New York (named after the city of Dunkerque, France, because of the similar harbor.) Massena, New York (named after Andre Massena , one of Napoleon's field marshalls.) New Rochelle, New York (named after La Rochelle , France.) Rouses Point, New York (named after early settler Jacques Rouse.) North Carolina Beaufort, North Carolina ("Beautiful Fort") Fayetteville, North Carolina Beaux Arts Village, Washington (from "fine arts") Bellevue, Washington ("Beautiful View") Des Moines, Washington ("of the Monks") Grand Coulee, Washington (from coulée or couler, meaning "to flow") La Crosse, Washington Normandy Park, Washington (named after Normandy ) Palouse, Washington (from pelouse, meaning "lawn") Pend Oreille County, Washington (named after the Pend d'Oreilles tribe.

French for "earring") West Virginia Despard, West Virginia Montcalm, West Virginia (named for Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French military commander in the French and Indian War). Wisconsin Allouez, Wisconsin (Named after Claude-Jean Allouez) Calumet County, Wisconsin (French word for a Menominee peace pipe) Couderay (From Lac Courte Oreilles, "Short Ears") De Pere, Wisconsin (from "Les Rapides des Pères," The Rapids of the Fathers) Eau Claire, Wisconsin ("Clear Water") Fond du Lac, Wisconsin ("Bottom of the Lake") Juneau county State Name Meanings - Business Insider print If you want to understand a state's history, start by looking at its name. The map below shows the breakdown of all the states' etymologies. The most names, eight in both cases, stem from Algonquin and Latin. Wikimedia Commons But the etymologies of some names have become muddled over the years. Even alternate theories exist for some, and an author even appears to made one up entirely.

Scroll through the list to find your home state's meaning and how the name originated: Alabama : From the Choctaw word albah amo meaning "thicket-clearers" or "plant-cutters." Alaska : From the Aleut word alaxsxaq, from Russian Аляска, meaning "the object toward which the action of the sea is directed." Arizona : From the O'odham (a Uto-Aztecan language) word ali sona-g via Spanish Arizonac meaning "good oaks." Arkansas : From a French pronunciation of an Algonquin name for the Quapaw people: akansa. This word, meaning either "downriver people" or “people of the south wind," comes from the Algonquin prefix -a plus the Siouan word kká:ze for a group of tribes including the Quapaw. California : In his popular novel "Las sergas de Esplandián" published in 1510 , writer Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo named an imaginary realm California. Spanish explorers of the New World could have mistaken Baja California as the mythical place. Where Montalvo learned the name and its meaning remain a mystery.

Colorado : Named for the Rio Colorado (Colorado River), which in Spanish means "ruddy" or "reddish." Connecticut : Named for the Connecticut River, which stems from Eastern Algonquian, possibly Mohican, quinnitukqut, meaning "at the long tidal river." Delaware : Named for the Delaware Bay, named after Baron De la Warr (Thomas West, 1577 – 1618), the first English governor of Virginia. His surname ultimately comes from de la werre, meaning "of the war" in Old French. Florida : From Spanish Pascua florida meaning "flowering Easter." Spanish explorers discovered the area on Palm Sunday in 1513. The state name also relates to the English word florid, an adjective meaning "strikingly beautiful," from Latin floridus. Georgia : Named for King George II of Great Britain. His name originates with Latin Georgius, from Greek Georgos, meaning farmer, from ge (earth) + ergon (work).

Hawaii : From Hawaiian Hawai'i, from Proto-Polynesian hawaiki, thought to mean "place of the Gods." Originally named the Sandwich Islands by James Cook in the late 1700s. Idaho : Originally applied to the territory now part of eastern Colorado, from the Kiowa-Apache (Athabaskan) word idaahe, meaning "enemy," a name given by the Comanches. Illinois : From the French spelling ilinwe of the Algonquian's name for themselves Inoca, also written Ilinouek, from Old Ottawa for "ordinary speaker." Indiana : From the English word Indian + -ana, a Latin suffix, roughly meaning "land of the Indians." Thinking they had reached the South Indes, explorers mistakenly called native inhabitants of the Americas Indians.

And India comes from the same Latin word, from the same Greek word, meaning "region of the Indus River." Iowa : Named for the natives of the Chiwere branch of the Aiouan family, from Dakota ayuxba, meaning "sleepy ones." Kansas : Named for the Kansa tribe, natively called kká:ze, meaning "people of the south wind." Despite having the same etymological root as Arkansas, Kansas has a different pronunciation. Kentucky : Named for the Kentucky River, from Shawnee or Wyandot language, meaning "on the meadow" (also "at the field" in Seneca). Louisiana : Named after Louis XIV of France. When René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory for France in 1682, he named it La Louisiane, meaning "Land of Louis." Louis stems from Old French Loois, from Medieval Latin Ludovicus, a changed version of Old High Germany Hluodwig, meaning "famous in war." Maine : Uncertain origins, potentially named for the French province of Maine, named for the river of Gaulish, an extinct Celtic language, origin.

Maryland : Named for Henrietta Maria, wife of English King Charles I. Mary originally comes from Hebrew Miryam, the sister of Moses. Massachusetts : From Algonquian Massachusett, a name for the native people who lived around the bay, meaning "at the large hill," in reference to Great Blue Hill, southwest of Boston. Michigan : Named for Lake Michigan, which stems from a French spelling of Old Ojibwa (Algonquian) meshi-gami, meaning "big lake." Minnesota : Named for the river, from Dakota (Siouan) mnisota, meaning "cloudy water, milky water," Mississippi : Named for the river, from French variation of Algonquian Ojibwa meshi-ziibi, meaning "big river." Missouri : Named for a group of native peoples among Chiwere (Siouan) tribes, from an Algonquian word, likely wimihsoorita , meaning "people of the big (or wood) canoes." Montana : From the Spanish word montaña, meaning "mountain, which stems from Latin mons, montis. U.S. Rep. James H.

Ashley of Ohio proposed the name in 1864. Nebraska : From a native Siouan name for the Platte River, either Omaha ni braska or Oto ni brathge, both meaning "water flat." Nevada : Named for the western boundary of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, meaning "snowy mountains" in Spanish. New Hampshire : Named for the county of Hampshire in England, which was named for city of Southampton. Southampton was known in Old English as Hamtun, meaning "village-town." The surrounding area (or scīr) became known as Hamtunscīr. New Jersey : Named by one of the state's proprietors, Sir George Carteret, for his home, the Channel island of Jersey , a bastardization of the Latin Caesarea, the Roman name for the island. New Mexico : From Spanish Nuevo Mexico, from Nahuatl (Aztecan) mexihco, the name of the ancient Aztec capital. New York : Named in honor of the Duke of York and Albany, the future James II.

York comes from Old English Eoforwic, earlier Eborakon, an ancient Celtic name probably meaning "Yew-Tree Estate." North Carolina : Both Carolinas were named for King Charles II. The proper form of Charles in Latin is Carolus, and the division into north and south originated in 1710. In latin, Carolus is a strong form of the pronoun "he" and translates in many related languages as a "free or strong" man. North Dakota : Both Dakotas stem from the name of a group of native peoples from the Plains states, from Dakota dakhota, meaning "friendly" (often translated as "allies"). Ohio : Named for the Ohio River, from Seneca (Iroquoian) ohi:yo', meaning "good river." Oklahoma : From a Choctaw word, meaning "red people," which breaks down as okla "nation, people" + homma "red." Choctaw scholar Allen Wright, later principal chief of the Choctaw Nation, coined the word. Oregon : Uncertain origins, potentially from Algonquin.

Pennsylvania : Named, not for William Penn, the state's proprietor, but for his late father, Admiral William Penn (1621-1670) after suggestion from Charles II. The name literally means "Penn's Woods," a hybrid formed from the surname Penn and Latin sylvania. Rhode Island : It is thought that Dutch explorer Adrian Block named modern Block Island (a part of Rhode Island) Roodt Eylandt, meaning "red island" for the cliffs. English settlers later extended the name to the mainland, and the island became Block Island for differentiation. An alternate theory is that Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano gave it the name in 1524 based on an apparent similarity to the island of Rhodes. South Carolina: See North Carolina. South Dakota: See North Dakota. Tennessee : From Cherokee (Iroquoian) village name ta'nasi' of unknown origin.

Texas : From Spanish Tejas, earlier pronounced "ta-shas;" originally an ethnic name, from Caddo (the language of an eastern Texas Indian tribe) tayshameaning "friends, allies." Utah : From Spanish yuta, name of the indigenous Uto-Aztecan people of the Great Basin; perhaps from Western Apache (Athabaskan) yudah,meaning "high" (in reference to living in the mountains). Vermont : Based on French words for "Green Mountain," mont vert. Virginia : A Latinized name for Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen. Washington : Named for President George Washington (1732-1799). The surname Washington means "estate of a man named Wassa" in Old English. West Virginia: See Virginia. West Virginia split from confederate Virginia and officially joined the Union as a separate state in 1863. Wisconsin : Uncertain origins but likely from a Miami word Meskonsing, meaning "it lies red"; misspelled Mescousing by the French, and later corrupted to Ouisconsin. Quarries in Wisconsin often contain red flint.

Wyoming : From Munsee Delaware (Algonquian) chwewamink,meaning "at the big river flat." How All 50 States Got Their Names | Mental Floss How All 50 States Got Their Names Like us on Facebook Alabama Before Europeans landed on American shores, the upper stretches of the Alabama River in present-day Alabama used to be the home lands of a Native American tribe called – drum roll, please – the Alabama (Albaamaha in their own tribal language). The river and the state both take their names from the tribe, that's clear enough, but the meaning of the name was another matter. Despite a wealth of recorded encounters with the tribe – Hernando de Soto was the first to make contact with them, followed by other Spanish, French and British explorers and settlers (who referred to the tribe, variously, as the Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alibamon, Alabamu, Allibamou, Alibamo and Alibamu) – there are no explanations of the name's meaning in the accounts of early explorers, so if the Europeans asked, they don't appear to have gotten an answer.

An un-bylined article in the July 27, 1842 edition of the Jacksonville Republican put forth the idea that the word meant “here we rest.” Alexander Beaufort Meek, who served as the Attorney General of Alabama, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and the President of the First American Chess Congress, popularized this theory in his writings throughout the next decade. The rub, of course, is that experts in the Alabama language have never been able to find any evidence to support that translation. What they did find are two words in the Choctaw language (both tribes' languages are in the Muskogean language family), alba (“plants” or “weeds”) and amo (“to cut” or “to gather”), that together make Albaamo, or “plant gatherers.” We also know that the Alabama referred to a member of their tribe as an Albaamo, cleared land and practiced agriculture largely without tools and by hand and had contact with the neighboring Choctaws. Today, the prevailing theory is that the phrase was used by the Choctaws to describe their neighbors and the Alabama eventually adopted it as their own.

Alaska Like Alabama (and, as we'll see, plenty of other state names), the name Alaska comes from the language of the area's indigenous people. The Aleuts (a name given to them by Russian fur traders in the mid 18th century; they used to, and sometimes still do, call themselves the Unangan), natives of the Aleutian Islands, referred to the Alaskan Peninsula and the mainland as alaxsxaq (ah-lock-shock), literally, “the object toward which the action of the sea is directed.” Arizona There are two sides in the argument over the origin of Arizona's name. One side says that the name comes from the Basque aritz onak (“good oak”) and was applied to the territory because the oak trees reminded the Basque settlers in the area of their homeland. The other side says that the name comes from the Spanish Arizonac, which was derived from the O'odham (the language of the native Pima people) word ali ?ona-g (“having a little spring”), which might refer to actual springs or a site near rich veins of silver discovered in 1736.

For what it's worth, official Arizona state historian Marshall Trimble had supported the latter explanation but for now favors the former. Arkansas The first Europeans to arrive in the area of present-day Arkansas were French explorers accompanied by Illinois Indian guides. The Illinois referred to the Ugakhpa people native to the region as the Akansa (“wind people” or “people of the south wind”), which the French adopted and pronounced with an r. They added an s to the end for pluralization, and for some reason it stuck when the word was adopted as the state's name. The pronunciation of Arkansas was a matter of debate (Ar-ken-saw vs. Ar-kan-zes) until it was officially decided by an act of the state legislature in 1881. California California existed in European literature way before Europeans settled the Western U.S. It wasn't a state filled with vineyards and movie stars, but an island in the West Indies filled with gold and women.

The fictional paradise, first mentioned in the early 1500s by Spanish author Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo in his novel Las Sergas de Esplandián, is ruled by Queen Califia and “inhabited by black women, without a single man among them, [living in] the manner of Amazons.” The island is said to be “one of the wildest in the world on account of the bold and craggy rocks... everywhere abounds with gold and precious stones” and is home to griffins and other mythical beasts. While there is some consensus that the area was named for the fictional island, scholars have also suggested that the name comes from the Catalan words calor (“hot”) and forn (“oven”) or from a Native America phrase, kali forno (“high hill”). Colorado Colorado is a Spanish adjective that means “red.” The early Spanish explorers in the Rocky Mountain region named a river they found the Rio Colorado for the reddish silt that the water carried down from the mountains. When Colorado became a territory in 1861, the Spanish word was used as a name because it was commonly thought that the Rio Colorado originated in the territory.

This was not the case, however. Prior to 1921, the Colorado River began where the Green River of Utah and the Grand River of Colorado converged outside of Moab, Utah, and the United States Geological Survey identified Green River of Wyoming as the Colorado's actual headwaters. The Rio Colorado did not actually flow through Colorado until 1921, when House Joint Resolution 460 of the 66th United States Congress changed the name of the Grand River. Connecticut The state is named after the Connecticut River, which was named quinnitukqut by the Mohegans who lived in the eastern upper Thames valley. In their Algonquian language, the word means “long river place” or “beside the long tidal river.” Delaware Delaware is named for the Delaware River and Delaware Bay. These, in turn, were named for Sir Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, the first colonial governor of Virginia, who traveled the river in 1610. The title is likely ultimately derived from the Old French de la werre (“of the war” or a warrior).

Florida Six days after Easter in 1513, the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed near what is now the city of Saint Augustine. In honor of the holiday and the area's plant life, he named the land Florida for the Spanish phrase for the Easter season, pascua florida (“feast of flowers”). The name is the oldest surviving European place-name in the U.S. Georgia In the early 18th century, the British Parliament assigned a committee to investigate the conditions of the country's debtor prisons and didn't like what they found. A group of philanthropists concerned with the plight of debtors proposed the creation of a colony in North America where the “worthy poor” could get back on their feet and be productive citizens again. Their plan ultimately didn't pan out as the colony wasn't settled by debtors, but the trustees of the colony still wanted to thank King George II for granting their charter, so they named the place after him. (Bonus: The nation of Georgia is supposedly called so because its inhabitants revere St.

George and feature his cross on their flag, though Georgians refer to themselves as Kartvelebi and their country as Sakartvelo.) Hawaii No one is certain, so take your pick. The name may come from the Proto-Polynesian Sawaiki or "homeland" (some early explorers' accounts have the natives calling the place Hawaiki, a compound of hawa, "homeland," and ii, "small, active") or from Hawaii Loa, the Polynesian who tradition says discovered the islands. Idaho The origin of Idaho's name, like a few other names we've already talked about, is a mystery. When it was proposed as the name of a new U.S. territory, it was explained as a derivation of the Shoshone Indian term ee-da-how, meaning "gem of the mountains" or "the sun comes from the mountains." It's possible that the word, and its Indian origin, were made up by the man who proposed the name, George M.

Willing, an eccentric industrialist and mining lobbyist (not all historians and linguists agree on this, though, and the most common alternate explanation is that the name comes from the Apache word idaahe ("enemy"), which the Kiowas Indians applied to the Comanches they came in contact with when they migrated to southern Colorado). When Congress was considering establishing a mining territory in the Rocky Mountains in 1860, Willing and B. D. Williams, a delegate from the region, championed "Idaho." The request for the name came up in the Senate in January 1861 and Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon objected to "Idaho," saying, "I do not believe it is an Indian word. It is a corruption. No Indian tribe in this nation has that word, in my opinion... It is a corruption certainly, a counterfeit, and ought not to be adopted." Lane was roundly ignored, probably because he had the bad luck of having been the vice presidential candidate for the pro-slavery southern wing of the Democratic Party in the previous year's election. After the Senate approved the name, Williams, for some reason, gave into curiosity and looked into Lane's claim.

He heard from several sources that Willing or someone in his group of territorial supporters had invented the name "Idaho" and that the word didn't actually mean anything. Williams went back to the Senate and requested that the name be changed. The Senate agreed and used a name that had been on the table before Willing and Williams showed up: "Colorado." A year later, Congress set out to establish another mining territory in the northwest part of the continent. "Idaho" was again a contender as a name. Without Williams there to call shenanigans and with the senators who should have remembered the last naming incident just a little bit preoccupied with the Civil War, "Idaho" went unchallenged and became the name of the territory and the state. Illinois "Illinois" is the modern spelling of the early French explorers' name for the people they found living in the area, which they spelled in endless variations in their records. The Europeans' first meeting with the Illinois was in 1674. Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary and explorer, followed a path to a village and asked the people there who they were.

According to Marquette's writings, "They replied that they were Ilinois...when one speaks the word...it is as if one said, in their language, 'the men'." The explorers thought the tribal name to signify a grown man in his prime, separate from, and superior to, the men of other tribes. Indiana The state's name means "Indian Land" or "Land of the Indians," named so for the Indian tribes that lived there when white settlers arrived. While its meaning might be simple enough, the way it got the name is a little more interesting. At the end of the French and Indian War, the French were forced out of the Ohio Valley, so a Philadelphia trading company moved in to monopolize trade with the Indians in the area. At the time, the tribes of the Iroquois had already formed a confederacy and conquered territory beyond their home lands, subjugating other tribes and treating them as tributaries. In the fall of 1763, members of the Shawnee and other tribes who were tributary to the Iroquois Confederacy conducted raids on traders from the Philadelphia company and stole their goods.

The company complained to the chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy and demanded restitution. The chiefs accepted responsibility for the behavior of their tributaries, but did not have the money to pay off the debt. Instead, when making a boundary treaty with the English five years later, the chiefs gave a 5,000-square-mile tract of land to the Philadelphia company, which accepted the land as payment. The land's new owners, in the search for a name, noted a trend in the way states and countries in both the Old World and New World were named. Bulgaria was the land of the Bulgars, Pennsylvania was the woodland of Penn, etc. They decided to honor the people to whom the land originally belonged and from whom it had been obtained and named it Indiana, land of the Indians. The year the colonies declared their independence from Britain, the Indiana land was transferred to a new company, who wanted to sell it. Some of the land, though, was within the boundaries of Virginia, which claimed that it had jurisdiction over the land's settlers and forbade the company from selling it. In 1779, the company asked Congress to settle the matter.

It made an attempt, but, still operating under Articles of Confederation, had no power to compel Virginia to do anything. The argument eventually went to the United States Supreme Court, but Virginia's government officials, strong believers in states' rights, refused to become involved with a federal court and ignored the summons to appear. In the meantime, Virginia's politicians worked to secure the Eleventh Amendment, which protected the states' sovereign immunity from being sued in federal court by someone of another state or country (and was proposed in response to a Supreme Court case dealing with Georgia's refusal to appear to hear a suit against itself, in which the Supreme Court decided against Georgia). After the amendment was passed and ratified, the company's suit was dismissed and it lost its claim to the land, which was absorbed by Virginia. The name would come back in 1800, when Congress carved the state of Ohio out of the Northwest Territory and gave the name "Indiana" to the remaining territorial land and, 16 years later, a new state. Iowa Iowa's name comes from the Native American tribe that once lived there, the Ioway. What the word means depends on who you ask.

One pioneer in the area wrote in 1868 that "some Indians in search of a new home encamped on a high bluff of the Iowa River near its mouth...and being much pleased with the location and the country around it, in their native dialect exclaimed, 'Iowa, Iowa, Iowa' (beautiful, beautiful, beautiful), hence the name Iowa to the river and to those Indians." A report from the 1879 General Assembly of Iowa translated the word a little differently and claimed it meant "the beautiful land." However, members of the Ioway Nation, who today inhabit Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, will tell you that Ioway is the French spelling of Ayuhwa, a name meaning "sleepy ones" given to the tribe in jest by the Dakota Sioux. (The Ioway refer to themselves as Baxoje (bah-ko-jay) or "the gray/ashy heads," a name that stems from an incident where tribe members were camping in the Iowa River valley and a gust of wind blew sand and campfire ashes onto their heads.) Kansas Kansas was named after the Kansas River, which was named after the Kansa tribe who lived along its banks.

Kansa, a Siouan word, is thought to be pretty old. How old? Its full and original meaning was lost to the tribe before they even met their first white settler. Today, we only know that the word has some reference to the wind, possibly "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind." Kentucky There is no consensus on where Kentucky's name comes from. Among the possibilities, though, are various Indians words, all from the Iroquoian language group, meaning "meadow," "prairie," "at the prairie," "at the field," "land of tomorrow," "river bottom," and "the river of blood." Louisiana Louisiana comes from the French La Louisiane, or "Land of Louis." It was named for Louis XIV, the King of France from 1643 to 1715. Exciting, no? Maine Maine is another case where no one is quite sure how the name came about.

Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason, who received a charter for land in Maine, were both English Royal Navy veterans, and the name may have originated with the sailors differentiating "the mainland" from the many islands off the state's coast. Maine's state legislature, meanwhile, passed a resolution in 2001 that established Franco-American Day and claimed that the state was named after the French province of Maine. Maryland The English colony of Maryland was named for Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I, who granted Maryland's charter. Mariana was also proposed as a name, but Maryland's founder, Sir Lord Baltimore, believed in the divine right of kings and turned the name down because it reminded him of the Spanish Jesuit and historian Juan de Mariana, who taught that the will of the people was higher than the law of tyrants. Massachusetts The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Bay Colony that preceded it were named after the area's indigenous people, the Massachusett. The tribe's name translates to "near the great hill," referring to the Blue Hills southwest of Boston.

An alternate form of the tribe's name, the Moswetuset ("hill shaped like an arrowhead"), refers to the Moswetuset Hummock, an arrow-shaped mound in Quincy, MA. Michigan The state takes its name from Lake Michigan. Michigan is a French derivative of the Ojibwa word misshikama (mish-ih-GAH-muh), which translates to "big lake," "large lake" or "large water." Minnesota Minnesota is derived from the Dakota tribe's name for the Minnesota River, mnisota (mni "water" + sota "cloudy, muddy;" sometimes translated to the more poetic "sky-tinted water"). The English language doesn't really dig words beginning with mn (you'll find only one, mnemonic), so early settlers in the region added some i's and produced a mini sound that they wrote as "mine." The city of Minneapolis combines mni with the Greek polis, or "city." Mississippi The state is named for the Mississippi River.

You may have heard that mississippi means "the Father of Waters" and you may have heard that from no less a source than novelist James Fenimore Cooper or President Abraham Lincoln (who wrote in a letter after the Civil War after Union victories during the Civil War, "the Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea"). I hate to pee on Honest Abe's parade, but the word, a French derivation of the Ojibwa messipi (alternately misi-sipi or misi-ziibi) actually means "big river." It may not sound as dramatic as Lincoln's preferred translation, but whatever the meaning, the name caught on. As French explorers took the name down the river with them to the delta, it was adopted by local Indian tribes and replaced their own names, and the earlier Spanish explorers' names, for the river. Missouri The state and the Missouri River are both named after the Missouri people, a southern Siouan tribe that lived along the river.

Missouri comes from an Illinois language reference to the tribe, ouemessourita, which has been translated as "those who have dugout canoes," "wooden canoe people" or "he of the big canoe." Montana Montana is a variation of the Spanish montaña, or "mountain," a name applied because of its numerous mountain ranges (3,510 mountain peaks, total). Who first used the name, and when, is unknown. Nebraska Nebraska comes from the archaic Otoe Indian words Ñí Brásge (in contemporary Otoe, it would be Ñí Bráhge), meaning "flat water." The words refer to the Platte River, which flows across the Cornhusker State. Nevada The state's name is the Spanish word for "snowfall" and refers to the Sierra Nevada ("snow-covered mountains") mountain range.

The non-Nevadan pronunciation of the name "neh-vah-dah" (long A sounds like the a in father) differs from the local pronunciation "nuh-vae-duh" (short A sounds like the a in alligator) and is said to annoy Nevadans endlessly. New Hampshire John Mason named the area he received in a land grant after the English county of Hampshire, where he had lived for several years as a child. Mason invested heavily in the clearing of land and building of houses in New Hampshire, but died, in England, before ever venturing to the new world to see his property. New Jersey New Jersey was named for Jersey, the largest of the British Channel Islands, by its founders Sir John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Carteret was born on Jersey and served as its Lieutenant Governor for several years. New Mexico New Mexico and the country it used to be part of, Mexico, both take their name from Nahuatl Mexihco. The meaning of the word is unclear, but there are several hypotheses.

It might reference Mextli or M?xihtli, an alternate name for Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and patron of the Aztecs, and mean “place where M?xihtli lives”. It’s also been suggested that the word is a combination of m?tztli (“moon”), xictli (“center”) and the suffix -co (“place”) and means “place at the center of the moon” (in reference to Lake Texcoco). New York Both the state and New York City were named for James Stuart, Duke of York and future King James II of England. The old York, a city in England, has been around since before the Romans made their way to the British Isles and the word York comes from the Romans’ Latin name for city, written variously as Eboracum, Eburacum and Eburaci. Tracing the name further back is difficult, as the language of the area’s pre-Roman indigenous people was never recorded.

They are thought to have spoken a Celtic language, though, and Eboracum may have been derived from the Brythonic Eborakon, which means “place of the yew trees.” North Carolina King Charles II of England, who granted a charter to start a colony in modern-day North Carolina, named the land in honor of his father, Charles I. Carolina comes from Carolus, the Latin form of Charles. North Dakota North and South Dakota both take their names from the Dakota, a tribe of Siouan people who lived in the region. No detailed etymology of Dakota is widely accepted, but the most common explanation is that it means “friend” or “ally” in the language of the Sioux. Ohio A common translation, “beautiful river,” originates in a French traveler’s 1750 account of visiting the region. He referred to the Ohio River as “une belle riviere” and gave its local Indian name as Ohio. People took his description of the river as a translation of the Indian name, though there is no evidence that that was his intention or that that is even a correct translation.

In fact, no definitive meaning for the word is available, though ohio is more likely a Wyandot word meaning “large/great” or “the great one,” than “beautiful river.” It could also be derived from the Seneca ohi:yo’ (“large creek”). Oklahoma Oklahoma is a combination of the Choctaw words ukla (“person”) and humá (“red”). The word was used by the Choctaw to describe Native Americans, “red persons.” Allen Wright, chief of the Choctaw Nation from 1866 to 1870, suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal government over the use of the Indian Territory. When the Indian Territory was whittled down to what is now Oklahoma, the new territory took its name from the Choctaw word. Oregon The origin of Oregon may be the most hotly debated of the state names.

Here’s a few of the competing explanations (and I may have even missed a few): - Derived from the French ouragan (“hurricane”) and the state named so because French explorers called the Columbia River le fleuve aux ouragans (“Hurricane River”) due to the strong winds in the Columbia Gorge. - Derived from oolighan, a Chinook name for the eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), a smelt found along the Pacific coast and prized as a source of food for Native Americans in the area. - Derived from the Spanish orejón (“big ears”), which early Spanish explorers reportedly used to refer to local natives. - Derived from Ouragon, a word used by Major Robert Rogers in a 1765 petition asking the British government to finance and supply an overland search for the Northwest Passage.

As to where Rogers got the word, it could have come from an error on a French-made map from the early 1700s, where the Ouisiconsink (“Wisconsin River”) is misspelled “Ouaricon-sint,” and broken so “Ouaricon” sits on a line by itself or it might have been derived from the Algonquian wauregan or olighin, which both mean “good and beautiful” (and were both used in reference to the Ohio River at the time). - Derived from the Shoshone words Ogwa (river) and Pe-On (west) and picked up from the Sioux, who referred to the Columbia as the “River of the West,” by American explorer Jonathan Carver. Pennsylvania Named in honor of Admiral William Penn. The land was granted to Penn’s son, William Penn, to pay off a debt owed by the crown to the senior Penn. The name is made up of Penn + sylva (“woods” ) + nia (a noun suffix) to get “Penn's Woodland.” The younger Penn was embarrassed by the name and feared that people would think he had named the colony after himself, but King Charles would not rename the land.

Rhode Island First used in a letter by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, in which he compares an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay (a bay on the north side of Rhode Island Sound) to the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean. The explanation preferred by the state government is that Dutch explorer Adrian Block named the area Roodt Eylandt (“red island”) in reference to the red clay that lined the shore and the name was later anglicized under British rule. South Carolina See North Carolina above. South Dakota North and South Dakota both take their names from the Dakota, a tribe of Siouan people who lived in the region. No detailed etymology of Dakota is widely accepted, but the most common explanation is that it means “friend” or “ally” in the language of the Sioux. Tennessee While traveling inland from South Carolina in 1567, Spanish explorer Juan Pardo passed through a Native American village in modern-day Tennessee named Tanasqui. Almost two centuries later, British traders came upon a Cherokee village called Tanasi (in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee).

No one knows whether Tanasi and Tanasqui were actually the same village, though it is known that Tanasi was located on the Little Tennessee River and recent research suggests that Tanasqui was close to the confluence of the Pigeon River and the French Broad River (near modern-day Newport). Tennessee could have come from either one of these village names, but the meanings of both words have since been lost. Texas Texas comes from teysha (sometimes spelled tejas, tayshas, texias, thecas, techan, teysas, or techas), a word widely used by the natives of the eastern Texas region before the arrival of the Spanish. The tribes had various spellings and interpretations of the word, but the usual meaning was “friends” or “allies.” Some tribes, like the Hasinais and the Caddo, used it as a greeting, “hello, friend.” This is the usage that Spanish explorers picked up and used to greet friendly tribes throughout Texas and Oklahoma. The explorers also applied the word as a name for the Caddo people and the area around their East Texas settlement.

Utah Derived from the name of the native tribe known as the Nuutsiu or Utes (which itself may come from the Apache yudah, yiuta or yuttahih, meaning “they who are higher up”), whom the Spanish first encountered in modern-day Utah in the late 1500s. In the tribe’s language, ute means “Land of the Sun.” (The tribe referred to themselves as the “Nuciu” or “Noochew,” which simply means “The People.”) Vermont Derived from the French words vert (“green”) and mont (“mountain”). Samuel Peters claimed that he christened the land with that name in 1763 while standing on top of a mountain, saying, “The new name is Vert-Mont, in token that her mountains and hills shall be ever green and shall never die." Most historians would disagree, as would Thomas Young, the Pennsylvania statesman who suggested that his state’s constitution be used as the basis for Vermont's and is generally credited with suggesting the name to maintain the memory of the Green Mountain Boys, the militia organization formed to resist New York’s attempted take-over of the area.

Virginia Named for Queen Elizabeth I of England (known as the Virgin Queen), who granted Walter Raleigh the charter to form a colony north of Spanish Florida. Washington Named in honor of the first president of the United States, George Washington. In the eastern US, the state is referred to as Washington State or the state of Washington to distinguish it from the District of Columbia, which they usually just call “Washington”, "D.C." or, if they're very local, "the District." Washingtonians and other Pacific Northwesterners simply call the state “Washington” and refer to the national capital as “Washington, D.C.” or just “D.C.” West Virginia West Virginia, formed from 39 Virginia counties whose residents voted to form a new state rather than join the Confederacy, was named after the same queen as the state it split from, though the new state was originally to be called Kanawha. Wisconsin Derived from Meskousing, the name applied to the Wisconsin River by the Algonquian-speaking tribes in the region.

The French explorer Jacques Marquette recorded the name in 1673, and the word was eventually corrupted into Ouisconsin, anglicized to its modern form during the early 19th century, and its current spelling made official by the territorial legislature in 1845. Modern linguists had been unable to find any word in an Algonquian language similar to the one Marquette recorded, and now believe that the tribes borrowed the name from the Miami meskonsing, or “it lies red,” a reference to the reddish sandstone of the Wisconsin Dells. Wyoming Derived from the Delaware (Lenape) Indian word mecheweami-ing (“at/on the big plains”), which the tribe used to refer their home region in Pennsylvania (which was eventually named the Wyoming Valley [Wilkes-Barre represent!]). Other names considered for the new territory were Cheyenne, Shoshoni, Arapaho, Sioux, Platte, Big Horn, Yellowstone and Sweetwater, but Wyoming was chosen because it was already in common use by the territory’s settlers.

Origin of "Louisiana" | State Symbols USA Origin of "Louisiana" Painting of Louis XIV of France (1638 - 1715); public domain image on Wikipedia . What does "Louisiana" mean? Louisiana (La Louisianne) was named by explorer René-Robert Cavelier in the mid 1600's to honor King Louis XIV of France. President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory from Napoleon in 1803 (the original Louisiana territory is now divided between 13 states). Louisiana

Question: Which US state is named for a King of France?
Answer: Louisiana