Wordorigins.org

The name Montana was suggested by Rep. James Ashley of Ohio in the 1864 act that separated the Montana Territory from the Idaho Territory. The name means mountain or mountainous, but the proximate language of origin is not certain. Ashley could have created then name from the Latin montana, meaning mountainous region. Or he could have taken it from the Spanish montaña, meaning mountain.¹

¹Oxford English Dictionary, Montana, n.², 3rd Edition, Dec 2007, Oxford University Press, accessed 24 Dec 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00315189>;
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1465;
Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 352.

The state of Missouri is named after the river, which in turn is named after the Indian tribe. The name comes to English via French, who got it from the Illinois name for the tribe, *we:messo:rita, meaning one with a dugout canoe. Misso:ri in Illinois dialect means dugout canoe.¹

¹Oxford English Dictionary, Missouri, n. and adj., 3rd Edition, Dec 2008, Oxford University Press, accessed 24 Dec 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00312036>;
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1446.

The state of Mississippi is named for the river, which in turn is from the Algonquin name for the river. Which Algonquin dialect is the origin is not known; it is probably from several as similar names for the river appear in many of them. The name, befittingly, means great river, akin to the Ojibwa misi (big) + sipi (river).

The Mississippi Territory was organized and so named in 1798. It expanded several times over the years, eventually encompassing all of what is today the states of Mississippi and Alabama. In early 1817, what is today Alabama was split off and organized as a separate territory. Mississippi was admitted to the union later that year and Alabama two years later.¹

¹Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1446;
Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 347.

The state name Minnesota comes from the name of the Minnesota River, which in turn is from the Dakota name for the river, minisota, meaning something along the lines of white water.¹

The mini- portion of the name indisputably means water, but the sense of the -sota portion is somewhat uncertain. It could mean white or cloudy white, or it could mean reflecting a cloudy sky. In any case, the name comes from the reflected color of the water, not from rapids as is sometimes thought.²

¹Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1439;

²Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 345.

Michigan derives its name, quite appropriately, from an Algonquin word meaning great lake. Exactly which Algonquin language the name comes from is uncertain, but it is almost certainly akin to the Fox mešikami, or large lake.¹

¹Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1426;
Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 340.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is named after the Indian tribe. The name in the Massachusett language is from massa (great) + wadchu (hill). The name is a reference to what is now known as the Great Blue Hill in Milton, about ten miles south of Boston. At all of 635 feet (194 m), the hill isn’t that great in absolute terms, but it’s one of the largest in the area.¹

¹Oxford English Dictionary, Massachusett, n. and adj., 3rd Edition, Dec 2000, Oxford University Press, accessed 24 Dec 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00302909>;
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1388;
Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names: United States and Canada, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 325.

The state of Maryland is obviously named after a Mary, but which one?

It’s Henrietta Maria (1609-99), queen-consort of King Charles I. The colony was so named in the royal charter of 20 June 1632 establishing it.¹

The founders of the colony, George and Cæcilius Calvert, the 1st and 2nd Lords Baltimore, were staunch Roman Catholics and sought to establish a Catholic colony in the Americas. It is commonly thought that they named it after either the Virgin Mary or the Catholic Queen Mary, but this is not the case. Henrietta Maria, a French princess, was Roman Catholic and served the dual purpose of being both a Catholic namesake and a politically astute choice.²

¹Oxford English Dictionary, Maryland, n., June 2008, Oxford University Press, accessed 24 Dec 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00302719>;
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1387.

²Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names: United States and Canada, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 324.

The name of the state of Maine is of uncertain origin. The name first appears in 1622, in a charter of the Council of New England granting land to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. Mason named the portion of the territory granted to him New Hampshire. The portion granted to Gorges, which is the modern state of Maine, had various names at different times, with Maine being the only one used consistently throughout the period leading up to 1665, when the crown made the name official. In 1677 the colony of Massachusetts purchased Gorges’s territory and kept the name intact.

Louisiana is named for King Louis XIV of France (1643-1715). It was so dubbed in 1682 by French Explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the first European to explore the entire Mississippi River region. La Salle used the term to refer to all the lands drained by the Mississippi.

The Louisiana territory east of the Mississippi River was ceded to Britain by France following the French and Indian War (a.k.a. Seven Years War) and the western region was ceded to Spain. Napoleon reacquired the western territory in 1800 and sold it to the United States in 1803. The modern state of Louisiana is but a small portion of the original Louisiana territory, which stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and as far west as what is now Wyoming.¹

¹Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1339;
Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 309.

The origin of the name of the Bluegrass state has never been established with certainty. The most likely explanation is that Kentucky is from the Iroquois kenta, meaning level or prairie.¹ The name of the state was in use by 1776 when Virginia organized Kentucky County, which would become the state in 1792.

Various other origins remain possibilities, including the suggestion that it comes from the Wyandot (an Iroquoian dialect) meaning land of tomorrow, or from an Algonquian root meaning river bottom or head of a river.²

¹Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, edited by Philip Babcock Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 1237;

²Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 272.