The names of the US states

When, on 4 July 1776, the 13 British colonies in North America declared their independence, the United States of America was born. As the continent was opened up and other European-administered lands - such as Florida (Spanish) and Louisiana (French) - were incorporated into the emerging nation, the number of states grew to the 50 that we have today.

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Q. So how did the names of the states come about

A. The names were arrived at in a variety of different ways. Almost half are named after various American Indian tribes or from Indian words. A fair number are of Spanish origin, while the majority of the rest are named in honour of important individuals.

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Q. Which are of Indian origin

A.

Alabama - an Indian word for a tribal town, and later applied to a tribe of the Creek confederacy, known as the Alabamas or Alibamons

Alaska - the Russian version of the Aleut alakshak, meaning 'peninsula'

Arizona - either the Spanish version of Pima Indian word for 'place of the small spring' or from the Aztec arizuma, meaning 'silver-bearing'

Arkansas - the French variant of quapaw, the Sioux word meaning 'downstream people'

Connecticut - from Mohican and other Algonquin words meaning 'long river place'

Hawaii - the origins of this are a little unclear, but it may be derived from a Polynesian word for homeland - hawaiki or owhyhee - or from the word describing the place of the gods

Iowa - a word variously translated as 'one who puts to sleep' or 'beautiful land'

Kansas - the Sioux word for 'south wind people'

Kentucky -an Iroquois word variously translated as 'dark and bloody ground', 'meadow land' and 'land of tomorrow'

Kentucky - the most common origins cited are the Iroquis words�ken-tah-ten, land of tomorrow, or�ken-ta-ke, meadow land; another possibility is kaintuckee, land of cane

Massachusetts - from the Algonquin 'large hill place'

Michigan - from Chippewa words mici gama meaning 'great water', after the lake of the same name

Minnesota - from Dakota Sioux word meaning 'cloudy water', referring to the Minnesota River

Mississippi - probably the Chippewa mici zibi, 'great river', or the Algonquin word messipi for the same

Missouri - an Algonquin word meaning 'river of the big canoes'

Nebraska - from the Omaha word meaning 'broad or flat water', and referring to the Platte River

New Mexico - the Spanish in Mexico applied term to land north and west of the Rio Grande in the 16th century, Mexico being an Aztec word

Dakota, North and South - dakota is Sioux for 'friend' or 'ally'

Ohio - the Iroquois word for 'beautiful river'

Oklahoma - the Choctaw words okla humma means 'red man'

Tennessee - tanasi was the name of Cherokee villages on the Little Tennessee River; between 1784 to 1788 it was known as the State of Franklin or Frankland

Texas - a variant of word used by Caddo and other Indians to mean 'friends' or 'allies', and applied to them by the Spanish in eastern Texas

Utah - probably from a Navajo word meaning 'upper' or 'higher up', and used to describe a Shoshone tribe living in the mountains called the Ute; the Mormons proposed the name Deseret, 'the land of honeybees' in the Book of Mormon, but it was rejected by Congress.

Wisconsin - either a Chippewa name believed to mean 'grassy place' or an Algonquin word meaning 'long river'

Wyoming - in Algonquin this means 'prairie' or 'broad plains'

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Q. And Spanish

A.

California - named by the Spanish conquistadors, possibly even by Cortez himself, it was the name of an imaginary island, an earthly paradise, in Las Serges de Esplandian, a romance written by Montalvo in 1510; referring originally to what is now Baja (Lower) California in Mexico, what is now the US state was called Alta (Upper) California

Colorado - the Spanish for 'ruddy-coloured' or 'red', it was first applied to the Colorado River and later the state

Florida - named by the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon on Pascua Florida, 'Flowery Easter', on Easter Sunday 1513; it refers also to the lush vegetation of the region

Indiana - this means 'land of the Indians'

Montana - 'mountainous'

Nevada - 'snowy', referring to the snow-capped mountains

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Q. French

A.

Illinois -French for iIlini or land of the illini, an Algonquin word meaning 'men' or 'warriors'

Louisiana - the remnant of a much more extensive territory named Louisiana by the explorer Sieur de La Salle for French King Louis XIV

Vermont - from the French words vert, 'green', and mont, 'mountain'

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Q. How about individuals

A.

Delaware - named for Lord de la Warr, an early governor of Virginia; this was first applied to the river, then to the Indian tribe (Lenni-Lenape) and finally to the state

District of Columbia (DC) - named, like Colombia and British Columbia, for Christopher Columbus

Georgia - named for King George II of England

Maryland - named for Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England

Carolina, North and South - named for Charles I of England, from Carolus, the Latin for Charles

Pennsylvania - named for William Penn, the Quaker, plus sylvania, or woodland

Virginia - named by Sir Walter Raleigh in honour of Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen of England

West Virginia - so named when western counties of Virginia refused to secede from the United States during the American Civil War, unlike the rest of the state

Washington - named after George Washington

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Q. What about places back in Europe

A.

Maine - from Maine, the historical French province

New Hampshire - named by Captain John Mason of Plymouth Council for his home county in England

New Jersey - named by Sir George Carteret after the Channel Island of Jersey.

New York - named for the Duke of York who received the patent to the captured Dutch territory from his brother Charles II

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Q. What's missing

A.

Idaho - a name with an invented Indian meaning, 'gem of the mountains', originally suggested for the Pike's Peak mining territory in Colorado, and later applied to the new mining territory of the Pacific Northwest

Oregon - the origin of this is unknown, though one theory holds that the name may have been derived from that of the Wisconsin River, which was shown on a 1715 French map as Ouaricon-sint

Rhode Island - again, the exact origin is unknown; one theory has it that Giovanni de Verrazano recorded an island about the size of Rhodes in the Mediterranean, but others believe the state was named Roode Eylandt by the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block because of the red clay he found there

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Q. What about the 51st state

A. The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico (Spanish for 'rich port') is a commonwealth in free association with the United States, and its residents are US citizens. It is represented in the US Congress by a non-voting resident commissioner, who is directly elected. It's probably only a matter of time until Puerto Rico is fully incorporated into the Union.

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There are, of course, those who posit that we here in the UK are the de facto 51st state of the USA, at least in cultural terms. But that's a rather cynical attitude - isn't it

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See also the articles on Inuit words for snow and the naming of America

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For more on Phrases & Sayings click here

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By Simon Smith