The Origins of the Names of All 50 U.S. States

Naming the States

Everybody knows the United States of America, and almost everybody knows most of the States by name. Even the citizens of other nations will often be familiar with the names of the 50 U.S. states because they all feature so prominently in popular culture—in the movies of Hollywood, the classic titles of novels and American songs, and even the names of real people and fictional characters.

We have all heard of The Oregon Trail and Hawaii 5-0, Minnesota Fats and The Texas Rangers, and Indiana Jones, not forgetting the Connecticut Yankee. Then there's also California Dreamin' and Kentucky Bluegrass and Tennessee Williams, the Rhode Island Red chicken, and the Colorado Potato Beetle. (Sorry, Colorado—I'm sure you're known for lots of good things besides a highly destructive potato-eating beetle.) Oh, and there's Oklahoma! There's even a dinosaur named after a state—Utahraptor—never mind the fact that it lived 125 million years before the state came into being, so maybe the state ought really to be named after the dinosaur!

But where do the names of the states come from?

They clearly have varied origins, some being taken straight from the language of Spanish explorers or from the English Motherland of much of modern America, and some owing their names to the native tribes and languages, whilst some ... well, that is the point of this page, to chart the origins and meanings of the names of all of these 50 United States of America.

Basic Information

The United States of America comprises an extensive landmass inhabited by numerous native tribes over thousands of years, and more recently colonised by the nations of Spain, Great Britain and France. As such the geographical and historical influences on the making of America have been very diverse. Fittingly, the 50 states of America reflect this diversity in their names, as demonstrated effectively by the map below.

It is perhaps only fair that the lion's share of the states should be named after the native American cultures who had lived in this part of the world for many millenia, though as far as etymology (understanding word origins) is concerned, that has unfortunately brought its own problems—the Indian tribes were many, with a multitude of verbal but unwritten languages and dialects, and with only hazy translations and phonetic interpretations for the European settlers to go on, (and often mis-translations or mis-interpretations).

So it is hardly surprising that the precise origins and meanings of many of these native state names have become lost in time, or perhaps were never really known in the first place. Most of course relate either to the tribes themselves, or to prominent features of the landscape such as rivers, lakes and mountains, and these features were also the elements of the New World which mattered most to European colonists eager to get their bearings and bring some sense to their mapping of the land.

The arrival of the Europeans also brought an influx of new names—the names of Kings and Queens were often commemorated by the colonising powers in the christening of 'new' lands, and so were the names of prominent figures given the task of establishing 'civilisation' in the New World. (Some of these were Latinised as this was still a major language of the educated classes, and the reference to Latin in the map below therefore reflects only the language etymology of the word, and not the colonising power).

A Brief Explanatory Note About American Tribes and Languages

During the compiling of this page, it rapidly became clear that the Native America which I had imagined was so simple—a few tribes (Sioux, Apache, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Cherokee and about a dozen others) distributed across the American continent—was far from being simple. The 'dozen or so' tribes turned out to be many hundreds that were in existence at the time of the Europeans' first contact. But the picture is far more complicated even than that. Some tribes had close associations, and the distinctions recognised by the Europeans were not necessarily the same as those recognised by the native Americans themselves. Some tribes divided as a result of disputes or united into confederacies at various times. And many tribes were known by several different names—names could only be phonetically interpreted by Europeans.

What's more, there existed at the time of settlement almost as many tribal languages as there were tribes—at least a couple of hundred. However, settlers did recognise certain similarities between some of the languages which suggested a common familial origin with subsequent evolution into distinct local dialects. Perhaps ten of these families of languages would be significant in the later naming of the American states, and some of the most important of these language families are listed below:

Algonquian: Spoken largely in the northeastern and east central states of America and in Canada, the Algonquian family of languages are associated with—among others—the Mahican, Massachusett, Delaware, Powhatan, Shawnee, Blackfoot, Illinois, and Ojibwe tribes. Further west, the Cheyenne speak a similar dialect, all incorporated in a larger language grouping called Algic.

Iroquoian: The Iroquoian languages were spoken by tribes in the Great lakes area and further south, including the Huron and Cherokee tribes.

Siouan: Siouan was the language family of tribes in the region of the American Great Plains, including the tribe of the same name—the Sioux. Also in this group are tribes such as the Quapaw, Kansa, Crow, and Dakotas.

Uto-Aztecan: Still further west and—as the name suggests—extending down south into Mexico are the Uto-Aztecan languages, of which there are more than thirty, including the dialects spoken by the Shoshoni, the Ute, and the Comanches.

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Athabascan: In the southwest is the language group of the renowned Apache and Navajo tribes, known as Athabascan. (Oddly, as can be seen in the map below, other languages of this family are spoken in the far north by Canadian tribes).

Origin of State Names

This list gives only brief explanations as to the possible origin and evolution of all state names. Further reading is referenced at the end.

• ALABAMA:

The name Alabama appears to derive most directly from the Alabama River, which was named in turn for the local Alibamu or Alabama tribe. It is believed the name of the tribe is a compound phrase from the related Muskogean language of the Choctaw tribe, comprising 'albah' meaning 'herbs or vegetation', and 'amo' either meaning 'to gather', or 'to clear'. The Alabamas would therefore be described as 'the tribe of vegetation gatherers' or 'the tribe of thicket clearers' - very probably a reference to the fact that they were noted for their farming activities - which of course involved first clearing the ground of vegetation. [1]

• ALASKA:

The Aleuts are the native people of the Aleutian Islands and the extreme Northwest of the American continental mainland. 'Alaska' comes from the Russian translation of 'alaxsxaq' - an Aleutian word meaning 'the main land which the sea breaks against' - or as we may put it today, Alaska is the 'mainland', as opposed to the islands of the Aleuts.

• ARIZONA:

The origin of the state name of Arizona is unknown for sure, but a couple of possibilities are put forward. A popular belief is that it derives from 'arid-zona' (dry region), but this easy explanation seems to bear no historical credence. Some others suggest that the name comes from 'aritz-ona', a Basque Spanish phrase meaning 'good oak', perhaps referring to a region of oak trees growing near the site of a big silver strike at Planchas de Plata in the 18th century. [2]

However, the favoured explanation seems to be that it comes from the O'odham language, and from the words 'ali' meaning 'little' and 'sona-g' meaning 'spring'. So 'Arizona' would mean 'little spring'. (interestingly, this may also still link indirectly to the 'good oak' theory, as the little spring of water would have enabled the growth of oak trees at Planchas de Plata. The O'odham speakers were native to the Sonoran Desert region of north Mexico and the states of Arizona and New Mexico, and their language has influences from Aztec Mexico.

• ARKANSAS:

A number of derivations have been put forward for this state name, but all relate to the tribal names of the native Americans who lived here. The favoured source seems to be the name used by Algonquian Illinois Indians to describe the Quapaw Indians of this part of America. They called them the 'Arkansa' meaning 'wind people'. (The wind featured strongly in the mysticism of many native tribes). The river on which the Arkansa lived became known as The Arkansaw. This was originally pronounced as it is spelled, but an alternative version which later became established had the name of the tribe pluralised as the 'Arkansas' with the 's' pronounced at the end. It seems eventually the state government decided on a compromise - hence the spelling would be Arkansas, but the 's' would be silent as in Arkansaw. (See also Kansas).

• CALIFORNIA:

The state name of California may have one of the most unusual origins of any of the 50 United States. It most likely comes from a Spanish novel written in 1510 by Garcia Ordóñez de Montalvo. The novel was called 'Las Sergas de Esplandián', and featured the fictional Queen Calafia who ruled over a mythical Island called 'California', which was somewhere to the 'west of the Indies'. When Spanish explorers travelled west of the Caribbean, they began to use the name of this fictional island to refer to the new territory around the Baja Peninsula - originally thought to be an island. The name has survived as one of the very oldest European place names on the continent. [3]

A less romantic alternative is that the name was invented as a combination of the Catalan words 'cali' (hot) and 'forn' (oven), simply because explorers found the land to be 'as hot as an oven'. [3]

• COLORADO:

The name of Colorado comes from a Spanish word for 'reddish', and refers originally to the Colorado River, which early explorers described as being that colour. It's believed it used to be reddish-brown due to a build up of silt and sediment, though the colour has changed subsequent to the building of the Glen Canyon Dam. [4] The state name was officially adopted in 1861 at the suggestion of the first territorial governor, William Gilpin.