Origin of State Names: Etymologies

Every state in the United States has an official name

Origin of state names - 50 states - where did the state name come from? What does the word mean? Most state names are based on native Indian languages, historical figures, or were named by early explorers comparing new lands to the Old World. The origin of some state names has been blurred or lost over time.

Access profiles of each of the 50 US states names and details on the origin of the state name.

The 50 US States	Etymologies: Origin of Name
Alabama	Origin of the name Alabama is thought to come from a combination of two Choctaw words; Alba and Amo. In Choctaw, "Alba" means vegetation, herbs, plants and "Amo" means gatherer or picker.
Alaska	Alaska is derived from the Aleut word "Alyeska," meaning "great land" or "that which the sea breaks against."
Arizona	Combination of two words from the Papago Indian dialect of the Pima language; "Aleh" and "Zon" together as "Aleh-zon" meaning "little spring."
Arkansas	Group of Indians known as the Quapaws lived in what is now northern Arkansas. Indians of the Ohio Valley referred to the Quapaws as the Arkansas, or "South Wind."
California	California comes from a mythical Spanish island ruled by a queen called Califia that was featured in a Spanish romance ("Las Sergas de Esplandian"). From a book, Las Sergas de Esplandián, by Garcia Ordóñez de Montalvo, c. 1500. (the Spanish explorers originally thought that California was an island)
Colorado	Colorado, has its origin in the Spanish language, as the word for "ruddy"or "red."
Connecticut	Particular reference to the Connecticut River. The word itself was translated from the Indian name "Quinnehtukqut" and means "beside the long tidal river."
Delaware	The Indians and the state were both named after the Delaware River. And where did the river get it's name? The Delaware River was named after Sir Thomas West (Lord de la Warr)
DC	Called District of Columbia, because it was built on land of the Territory of Columbia
Florida	Spanish, meaning "feast of flowers." (Easter)
Georgia	Named after England's King George II in 1733.
Hawaii	One theory has it that the name comes from a combination of the words "Hawa" and "ii" and means a small or new homeland; "Hawa" meaning a traditionl homeland and "ii" meaning small and raging. The other theory is that the name comes from the traditional discoverer of the islands, Hawaii Loa.
Idaho	The name "Idaho" was used for a steamship which traveled the Columbia River. "Idaho" is a coined or invented word, and is not a derivation of an Indian phrase "E Dah Hoe (How)" supposedly meaning "gem of the mountains."
Illinois	Algonquin 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."
Kansas	The Kansas River was named by the French after the Kansas, Omaha, Kaw, Osage and Dakota Sioux Indian word "KaNze" meaning, in the Kansas language "south wind."
Kentucky	Kentucky comes from the Wyandot Indian name for "plain" in reference to the central plains of the state.
Louisiana	French explorer named the area La Louisianne after 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	Called Maryland to honor King Charle's wife Queen Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary)
Massachusetts	The Jesuit missionary Father Rasles thought that it came from the word Messatossec, "Great-Hills-Mouth": "mess" (mass) meaning "great"; "atsco" (as chu or wad chu) meaning "hill"; and sec (sac or saco) meaning "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", "mountain-place."
Michigan	Originally referred to a clearing on the lower peninsula and was derived from the Chippewa Indian word "majigan" which means clearing. Lake Michigan was named after this clearing by European explorers in the area in the 1670's. From Chippewa words mici gama meaning "great water," after the lake of the same name.
Minnesota	Named by the Dakota Sioux for the river's "cloudy" or "milky water." The Dakota word "mnishota" means "cloudy" or "milky water."
Mississippi	Chippewa; mici zibi, "great river" or "gathering-in of all the waters." Also: Algonquin word, "Messipi."
Missouri	Gets its name from a tribe of Sioux Indians of the state called the Missouris. The word "Missouri" often has been construed to mean "muddy water" but the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology has stated it means "town of the large canoes," and authorities have said 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 in 1864, the name Montana is a derivation of the Latin word "montaanus" which means mountainous.
Nebraska	Named after the Platte River from the French meaning "broad river." The Omaha Indians called the river "ibôápka" also meaning "broad river."
Nevada	Spanish sailors gazed upon the beautiful mountain ranges of California. They called these mountains Sierra Nevada (snowy range). Sierra Nevada seemed an apt name for the new territory that was being carved out of Utah, but when the deed was done in 1859, the name of this new territory had been shortened to Nevada.
New Hampshire	Captain John Mason received a grant for land in 1629. He named this land New Hampshire after the English county of Hampshire where he had enjoyed a number of years as a child.
New Jersey	Sir John Berkley and Sir George Carteret received a royal charter for a colony in the new land and named this colony for the island of Jersey in the English Channel.
New Mexico	Name of this state is an anglicized version of "Nuevo Mexico," the Spanish name for the upper Rio Grande. Mexico, an Aztec spelling, means "place of Mexitli" one of the Aztec gods.
New York	New York was named by the British to honor the the Duke of York and Albany, the brother of England's King Charles II, when New Amsterdam was taken from the Dutch in 1664.
North Carolina	Carolina was named to honor Charles IX of France and then Charles I 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	Dakota is the Sioux Indian word for "friend".
Ohio	Ohio is the name that the Iroqois Indians used when referring to the river and means "large" or "beautiful river."
Oklahoma	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. Oklahoma means "red person."
Oregon	Historians say Oregon was most likely named after one of two rivers. The Columbia River, which forms a coastline along the northern border, was at one time called the Oregon or Ouragan, which is French for hurricane. Others believe the name was derived from a mapmaker's error in the 1700s. The Wisconsin River was named the Ouisconsink and was picked up by travelers referring to the country west of the Great Lakes as Ourigan.
Pennsylvania	Specified in the charter given to William Penn by England's Charles II in 1680. The Latin Sylvania meaning "woodlands" was added to Penn to create "Penn's woods."
Rhode Island	Named it "Roodt Eylandt" meaning "red island" in reference to the red clay that lined the shore. The name was later anglicized when the region came under British rule.
South Carolina	Carolina was named to honor Charles IX of France and then Charles I 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. Dakota was named for the Dakota, Sioux tribe which lived in the region. Dakota is the Sioux word for "friends" or "allies."
Tennessee	Named after the Little Tennessee River. Originally "Tanasi" the river took its name from two Cherokee villages on its banks.
Texas	Comes from the word "teysha" meaning "hello friend" in the language of the Caddo Indian tribes. 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	Vermont is 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.
Virginia	Virginia was named in 1584 in honor of Queen Elizabeth of England, who was popularly called the "Virgin Queen."
Washington	Washington Territory established in 1853 was named to honor George Washington.
West Virginia	Until 1861 West Virginia was part of Virginia. Virginia was named to honor Queen Elizabeth of England often referred to as the "Virgin Queen."
Wisconsin	An Indian name, spelled Ouisconsin and Mesconsing by early chroniclers. Believed to mean "grassy place" in Chippewa. Congress made it Wisconsin.
Wyoming	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 it was he who first suggested Wyoming as the name for this portion of the Dakota Territory. Wyoming comes from the Dakota "mscheweamiing" meaning "at the big flats" or "large plains."

State Names

The etymologies of some US state names are more obvious than others, derived from the Spanish or French tongue. Though, more than half of the US state names come from Native American tribal languages, with several still a mystery to scholars and historians.

name \ˈnām\
noun

Etymology:Middle English, from Old English nama; akin to Old High German namo name, Latin nomen, Greek onoma, onyma

Date: before 12th century

1
a: a word or phrase that constitutes the distinctive designation of a person or thing

b: a word or symbol used in logic to designate an entity

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Origin of State Names: Etymologies

Every state in the United States has an official name

The 50 US States

Etymologies: Origin of Name

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