{"id":71,"date":"2014-04-17T21:58:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T20:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=71"},"modified":"2015-04-25T18:11:38","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T16:11:38","slug":"who-were-virginia-carolina-and-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/who-were-virginia-carolina-and-georgia\/","title":{"rendered":"Who were Virginia, Carolina and Georgia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A German friend of mine once commented that a lot of states in America seemed to be named after women: Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia, even North and South Dakota. At first glance, this would seem to be true. Lots of women in history were named Virginia, Mary, Carolina and Georgia, and in our time there is a Hollywood actress<\/a> named Dakota.<\/p>\n

I had to break the news<\/span> to her that this was an illusion. Yes, Maryland<\/b> was named either for Henrietta Maria, the Catholic wife of King Charles I, or perhaps for the Virgin<\/span> Mary; it was established as a colony for English Catholics, who had been given a hard time since Henry VIII broke with the church. Virginia<\/b> is thought to have been named for Queen Elizabeth I, known as the Virgin Queen.<\/p>\n

Most of the other territories were, however, named for places in England \u2014 New Hampshire<\/b>, New York<\/b>, New Jersey<\/b> \u2014 or for men. Georgia<\/b> was named for King George II, the Carolinas<\/b> for King Charles II. Pennsylvania<\/b> was named for William Penn, a wealthy Englishman; Delaware<\/b> for a certain<\/span> Baron de la Warr; Louisiana<\/b> for French King Louis XIV.<\/p>\n

Three of the eastern territories may have been named for natural formations. Vermont<\/b>, which once belonged to New France, is believed to be a corruption<\/span> of verts monts<\/i>, or “green mountains”. Rhode Island<\/b>, according to one theory, reminded Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano of Rhodes in Greece. Another theory comes from Dutch explorer Adriaen Block’s description of “een rodlich Eylande<\/i>” \u2014 a reddish island. Rather than connecting Rhode Island to the rest of New England, Connecticut<\/b> is the French version of a native word meaning “long tidal river”.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts<\/b> is the only original territory named for the people who lived there: the Massachusett.<\/p>\n

Which place, exactly?<\/h2>\n

That was the only thing<\/a> the settlers got right. They called their town Plymouth, after the place in England they had just left. How dumb is that? The practice continued, such that most other towns in Massachusetts were given identical names to places in England. Conversations in those days must have revolved<\/span> around this cognitive dissonance.<\/p>\n

Settler 1:<\/b> “My friend lives in Cambridge. He regularly does business in Marlborough.”
\nSettler 2:<\/b> “I pray<\/span>, good sir, do you mean Cambridge, England, or Cambridge, Massachusetts? And to which Marlborough do you refer?”
\n(Repeat dozens of times a day.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The arrogance of naming the land as though it were uninhabited<\/span> was generally corrected after the colonial period. Native American names appeared all over the map, many of them having to do with water: Ohio<\/b>, “great<\/span> river”; Michigan<\/b>, “large water”; Minnesota<\/b>, “clear water”; Nebraska<\/b>, “flat water”; Mississippi<\/b>, “great river”; Wyoming<\/b>, “big river flat”; Arizona<\/b>, “small spring”. Alaska<\/b> and Hawaii<\/b> have more terrestrial meanings (“mainland” and “homeland”, respectively).<\/p>\n

Lost civilizations<\/h2>\n

Illinois<\/b> was named for a large Native American tribe<\/span>, the Illinois; the Dakotas<\/b> for the Dakota Sioux people; Iowa<\/b> for the Ioway people; Missouri<\/b> for the Missouri people; Alabama<\/b> for the Alabama tribe; Utah<\/b> for the Ute people; Kansas<\/b>, Arkansas<\/b>, Oklahoma<\/b> and Texas<\/b> from words referring to peoples who once lived there. Indiana<\/b> stands for all those whose names have been forgotten.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin<\/b>, Tennessee<\/b>, and Oregon<\/b> are adaptations of native words whose meaning has been lost. Where the names Maine<\/b>, Kentucky<\/b> and Idaho<\/b> come from is not clear.<\/p>\n

The Spaniards named New Mexico<\/b> centuries before Old Mexico, in reference to the Mexica or Aztec Empire. Elsewhere, Spanish names described the natural landscape: Colorado<\/b>, “reddish”; Monta\u00f1a<\/a><\/b>, “mountain”; Nevada<\/b>, “snow-covered” (from “Sierra Nevada”, snow-covered mountain range<\/span>); Florida<\/b>, “flowery land”. California<\/b> was the invented name of an island paradise in a Spanish novel.<\/p>\n

The naming process was going fine until 1852, when it suddenly came full circle<\/span>. Somebody suggested naming a northwestern state after America’s first president. Was he not paying attention? “What do you mean, the capital of our country is already named Washington<\/b>?” he must have said. On second thought, maybe someone was<\/i> paying attention. You see, the state was originally going to be called Columbia \u2014 as in District of Columbia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A German friend of mine once commented that a lot of states in America seemed to be named after women: Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia, even North and South Dakota. At first glance, this would seem to be true. Lots of women in history were named Virginia, Mary, Carolina and Georgia, and in our time there is a … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[53,22,54,69],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1516,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/1516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}