| State |
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) |
| District of Columbia |
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. |
| Minnesota |
Named by the Dakota Sioux for the river's "cloudy" or "milky water." The Dakota word "mnishota" means "cloudy" or "milky water." |
| Mississippi |
Mississippi means "large river" to the Chippewa Indians. |
| 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 |
Named after the Wisconsin River. Wisconsin means "grassy place" in the Chippewa language. |
| 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." |
