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Contents. List of state and territory name etymologies of the United States. The fifty U.S. states, the District of Columbia, the five inhabited U.S. territories, and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands have taken their names from a wide variety of languages. The names of 24 states derive from indigenous languages of the Americas and one from Hawaiian.
Sep 30, 2024 · Delaware: The first state. Delaware got its name way back in 1610 when explorer Samuel Argall, sailing from Virginia, saw what is now Cape Henlopen and called it “Cape De La Warr” in tribute ...
On August 21, 1959, Hawaii joined the United States as its 50th state. Idaho. The origin of Idaho ’s state name is from a fabricated Native American word. A lobbyist named George M. Willing suggested the name “Idaho” for a new territory created by the U.S. Congress in the early 1860s.
- The State of Alabama
- The State of Alaska
- The State of Arizona
- The State of Arkansas
- The State of California
- The State of Colorado
- The State of Connecticut
- The State of Delaware
- The State of Florida
- The State of Georgia
Year of statehood: 1819 Denizen name:Alabamian or (less popular) Alabaman In the early 16th century, while Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto was making his way across the New World, he met a native tribe, a subdivision of the Creek, called the Alabama — or something like it. As later explorers chronicled their journeys through the area, the tribe’s...
Year of statehood: 1959 Denizen name:Alaskan The name Alaska is believed to come from the Aleut word aláxsxaq or aleyska(or any of other numerous spellings), which is translated as “an object to which the sea is directed.” A bit odd, yes, but the name might have stuck because of a misunderstanding. George R. Stewart, author of American Place-names:...
Year of statehood: 1912 Denizen name:Arizonan There are two stories behind the name Arizona. The more likely and more widely accepted is that it comes from an O’odham place name that means “place of the small spring,” originally spelled Arizonacand later shortened to take the form of a Spanish word. That name for a specific location (which is south...
Year of statehood: 1836 Denizen name:Arkansan, though some argue for Arkansawyer French explorers first noted a village and tribe with the name Arkansa in 1673 — they added the -sto make it plural to indicate members of the tribe. It’s believed to be what Algonquian-speaking natives in the Ohio Valley called the Quapaws, who lived west of the Missi...
Year of statehood: 1850 Denizen name:Californian The first known appearance of the place name California appears in a work of fiction, a long early-16th-century romantic poem by Garcí Ordóñez de Montalvo called “Las Sergas de Esplandián” (The Exploits of Espladán). The story was a sequel to “Amadis de Gaula,” the approximate equivalent to the Spani...
Year of statehood: 1876 Denizen name:Coloradan This Spanish word meaning “colored, reddish” generally indicates a subtler or duller shade of red than the more common rojo.The name was first applied around 1602 to a stream that was murky and red with silt; that stream is today called the Little Colorado. The name over time worked itself up the strea...
Year of statehood: 1788 Denizen name:Nutmegger (though the U.S. Government Publishing Office prefers Connecticuter) First applied to settlements along the Connecticut River, Connecticut is from the Algonquian word Quinnehtukqut, which means “place beside the long tidal river.” The second, silent c in the name was probably inserted into the word by ...
Year of statehood: 1787 Denizen name:Delawarean The first colonial governor of Virginia, Thomas West, Lord de la Warr, lived in the colony for less than a year during 1610-11, but in that time, Samuel Argoll found and named a cape after him, calling it Lawar. It later became Delawareand was used for the bay and the river and eventually the state. T...
Year of statehood: 1845 Denizen name:Floridian Bestowed upon the land by Juan Ponce de Léon in 1513, the name Florida is Spanish for “flowered, flowery.” It’s possible that the lands he saw were actually quite lush and colorful, but it’s more likely that he chose the name because he landed during Easter season, which in Spain is called Pasqua flori...
Year of statehood: 1788 Denizen name:Georgian Georgia was named for King George II of England in 1732, taking the Latinized form for a place name. He signed the charter for the colony’s creation.
Jul 2, 2020 · The Prairie State gets its official name from Native Americans. Illinois comes from "Illiniwek," which is what the Illini people were called. The name means "best people." Illinois is the spelling ...
Oct 16, 2015 · 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.
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May 31, 2019 · From a series of misspellings to the native tribe's in their region, a state's name can give a lot of backstory to its history. Menu icon A vertical stack of three evenly spaced horizontal lines.
