The origins of place names

THE ALPS

The huge snowy peaks inspired the Gauls and Romans to call them by the Celtic word alb, or the Latin word albus, both meaning white.

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THE AMAZON

Since the ancient Greeks, explorers have searched for Amazon tribes and legendary female warriors. During
Francisco de Orellana’s exploration of the Andes in the 16th Century, indigenous women joined with their men to fight off the Spanish troops, and ever since then it has been called the Amazon River.

AMERICA

Shortly after Columbus’s expedition, another captain called Amerigo Vespucci landed on the New Continent.A German cartographer, when reading Vespucci’s maps, called the land ‘America’ in honour of the Italian seafarer.

ANDALUCIA

Al Andalus was the Arabic name given to this part of the peninsula. The Moors derived the name from the word Vandalucia, which is what it was called during the Barbarian invasions before the arrival of the Visigoths.The initial ‘V’ was later dropped.

THE ANTILLES (THE CARIBBEAN)

The word Antilia was used to refer to the mysterious islands always found on ancient maps, and which navigators and explorers of the Middle Ages dreamt of discovering. The Portuguese and Spanish believed that they would find their Antilia in the Caribbean, and it became known as the Antilles.

SAUDI ARABIA

A combination of Arabia, which means noble in the Semitic language, and the name for the House of Saud, which currently holds the throne.

ARGENTINA

The brilliance of the silver jewellery that the native tribes wore inspired the Italian explorer Sebastian Caboto
to call this land Argentina, from the Latin word argentum.

AUGUSTA

From the name of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It means ‘under good omens’.

AUSTRIA

The Ostmark (Eastern Borderland) was the border defined by Charlemagne during his reign.The
German derivation, Oesterreich, ended up as Austria.

THE AZORES

The falcons (azor in Portuguese) that the first discoverer of the lands found there made such an impression on
him that he called the islands after them.

BARCELONA

Originally called Barcina after its founder,Amilcare Barca, the Romans changed the name to Barcinona, which became Barcelona.The Catalans however called it Barna.

BELGIUM

Julius Caesar called the Celtic tribes of North Western Gaul Belgae, from where the modern day name derived.
Brussels, the capital city, comes from the word Bruocsela, which means City of the Marshes.

BENGAL

As part of the Kingdom of Banga, the English called it Bengal.

BERN

From Old German bar which meant bear, very common in the region at that time.

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BILBAO

It was the region’s founder, Lopez de Haro, who decided to call it Belvao, which meant ‘good ford’.The name then became the current Bilbao.

BIRMINGHAM

This literally meant ‘the farm of Beormond’s people’, as ham means farm, and ingas means people in Anglo Saxon.

BOLIVIA

In honour of its patriot, Simon Bolivar.

BONN

In Celtic, bona meant city.

BOSTON

A group of colonists founded a city that they called after the town they had come from in England, Boston.

BRAZIL

Braise is an Old French word meaning burning cold (hence brazier). A redwood tree grew in the area which looked like burning coals, which is where the name came from.

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE

After many navigational problems, Vasco de Gama finally discovered that beyond the cape, it was possible to keep on sailing towards the East, to the Indias, and this made him so happy that he named it accordingly.

CANADA

The native tribes called their settlement Kanata, which inspired English sea captain Jacques Cartier to use the
name Canada for the region.

THE CANARY ISLANDS

From the Latin canis (dog), referring to the large number of dogs that the Romans found along the coast. The islands gave the Canary birds their name, and not the other way round.

THE CARIBBEAN

From canibal, the famous bloodthirsty tribe from northern Latin America which invaded the islands and settled there.They left such an impression on the Spanish explorers that archipelago was called the Caribbean after them.

CHILE

Tchili means snow in the native tongue, referring to the permanently snow-capped peaks of the Andes.

CAPE HORN

It was the first seaman to pass this cape who, in honour of his native city of Hoorn, baptised the dangerous cape with the name.

CHINA

Short but intense, the rule of the Chin Dynasty left a lasting mark on the widespread lands, which later
unified and called themselves China.

CINCINNATI

The name comes from a Roman legend about a farmer, Cincinnatus, who saved his city from war, then returned to his fields. In the United States, after the War of Independence, George Washington went back to being a farmer, and the Society of Cincinnati was formed for those who had fought without interest. A few years later, in Ohio, a city with the same name was founded in their honour.

COLUMBIA

In honour of the Italian sailor Christopher Columbus.

COLORADO

The ‘Red coloured’ side beat the ‘White’ side during the battle between the Oribe and Ribera.They had decided to call themselves these names in order to tell each other apart.

THE CONGO

Congo means mountain in Bantu, the native language there.

COPENHAGEN

First called Havn (bay), it was then named the ‘Merchants’ Bay’, or Kjobenhavn, from where the current name originates.

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KOREA

The country got its name from Marco Polo, who had heard about the Koryu Dynasty which had reigned there for a long time.

DUSSELDORF

From dorf (house) and dussel (river), both Old German words.

ETHIOPIA

The Greeks called the people from the south of Egypt etiopes, which meant burnt faces.

EVEREST

Colonel George Everest calculated its height in 1852.

PHILIPPINES

Named in honour of King Philip II of Spain.

FLORENCE

The prosperity of its residents and their ‘flowering’ culture gave the Italian city its name.

FLORIDA

From Pascua Florida (Flowery Easter), the period during which Ponce of Leon discovered the peninsula for the Spanish Crown.

FORMOSA

The beauty of the countryside stunned the Portuguese traders who baptised it fermosa (beautiful).

FRANCE

From the Frankish tribes who invaded the lands during the Roman Empire.

FRANKFURT

Franconofurt referred to the Germanic tribe of the Franks, and Furt which means ford.

GANGES

In Hindi, ganga means river.

GIBRALTAR

The name comes from Jebel-al-Tarik (the mountain of Tarik), in honour of its first conqueror.

GRANADA

It comes from the name of the Grenadine fruit, which is abundant in the region.

GREAT BRITAIN

The land was called Britannia by the Romans based on the native name for the island opposite France.

SCOTLAND

In Roman times, the escotos were an Irish tribe that regularly invaded the lands.

GREENLAND

An early example of propaganda, Erik the Red, who discovered them, called the hostile lands ‘green’ in attempt to attract colonists. It didn’t work.

HAWAII

It comes from the native term owhyhee, the name of the first Polynesian who came to the lands, according to local legend.

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HOLLAND

In the local tongue, holland meant forestland, and was the name given to the area surrounding the city of Amsterdam.

HUDSON

In honour of the man who discovered it, Henry Hudson.

INDIA

The Greeks used the word Indo for the land that the natives called sindhu (river), which then gave name to the peninsula of India.

ENGLAND

The ‘Land of the Angles’, from the Roman name for the tribes.

IRELAND

Its real name is Eire, and when pronounced together with land, gives ‘Ireland’.

ISRAEL

In the bible, Jacob was renamed Israel.

JAMAICA

A combination of James, the name of the island’s English conqueror, and Xaymaca (Island of fountains), a native word for the land.

JAPAN

The peoples of this land called it jihpen-kuo (land of the rising sun), although in Japanese the pronunciation is more like nippon.

JERUSALEM

Paradoxically, in Hebrew this means ‘City of peace’.

LIMA

Spanish conqueror who founded the city, Pizarro, called it ‘City of Kings’, but the natives called it Rimac,
which later changed to Lima.

LONDON

From the Latin Londinium, which in turn derived from Celtic.

LOS ANGELES

The Spanish conqueror Gaspar de Portola called the nearby river Our Lady of the Angels, a name that was taken up by the city founded on its banks.

MADAGASCAR

Marco Polo spoke of the island of Madeigascar, settled by the Malayan Malagasy.

MALDIVES

One thousand two hundred reefs give the name to these islands, from mal (thousand) and diva (island).

MARBELLA

The Medieval Old Town was built on the remains of a Roman city which had been called Salduba, and parts of it would later be used again by the Arabs. Later on it received the name ‘mar bella’, (beautiful sea), referring to the beauty of the sea.

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MEDITERRANEAN

From the Latin ‘mar medi terraneum’, which means ‘the sea in the middle of lands’.

MILAN

It was called Mediolanum in Latin, meaning it was in the middle of the land, in the centre of a plain at the foot of the Alps.

MONTEVIDEO

Called after the hill with the same name on which the city is built.

MONTPELLIER

Originally Monspessulanus, which is said to have stood for for ‘mont pelé’, the naked hill, because the vegetation
was poor.

MOSCOW

The Russian name for its capital is Moskva, which comes from the name of the river that crosses through the city, the Moscova.

NEW YORK

The city was originally called New Amsterdam, but the English settlers conquered the Dutch colonists and re-named it New York in honour of the King of England’s brother.

MISSISSIPPI

‘Mici se-pe’ means large river in the native tongue of the region.

NAPLES

In Italian, the name Napoli comes from ‘nea polis’, meaning ‘New City’ in Latin.

PARAGUAY

Some sources say that this word meant a very large fast flowing river, but others say that it comes from paragua (feather crown).

PARIS

The parisii tribes lived in this region under the Roman rule.

PERU

It is unclear where the name comes from as various legends create confusion. Some say that a native gave his own name, Beru, when asked what the lands were called.

POLYNESIA

Meaning many islands in Greek.

PUERTO RICO

Literally meaning ‘rich port’, so called for the great riches that left on boats bound for Spain.

RHODESIA

In honour of the English conqueror, Cecil John Rhodes.

RIO DE JANEIRO

From the Portuguese ‘Rio de enero’ (River of January), when a Portuguese mistook the bay for the mouth of a river.

ROME

From its legendary creator, Romulus, twin brother and killer of Remus, both sons of Mars and founders of the city.

RUSSIA

The Slavic peoples of the region called the Vikings who settled in the lands ‘rus’, although another source refers to a Chief Rurik.

SAHARA

Means desert in Arabic.

SICILY

From the Greek Sikelia, after the native Sikels in the south of Italy.

SINGAPORE

Means City of Lions, from singha (lion) and pore (city).

SYDNEY

In honour of Lord Sydney who founded the city.

THAILAND

In the local tongue thai means free, so the literal translation is ‘Land of the Free’.

STUTTGART

A modified version of ‘Stutengarten’, which in English roughly means ‘stud farm’.

TRIPOLI

Originally ‘Tres Polis’, referring to the three cities founded by the Phoenicians and which were later merged into one town.

VATICAN CITY

In Latin, vatis means fortune-teller, and vatinacio means a prophecy.

VANCOUVER

In honour of the English Captain George Vancouver who founded the city.

VENEZUELA

The distinctive stilt houses that the natives had built over the river reminded Amerigo Vespucci of Venice, and so he called the region Little Venice, or Venezuela.

VIENNA

From the Roman name Vindobona, which has a Celtic origin.

VIRGINIA

In honour of the ‘Virgin Queen’ Elizabeth I of England.

VIZCAYA

When the Romans arrived at the Basque Country, they called the people who had been living on the lands since long before the Celts,Vascones. A derivative of this word gave Vizcaya.

ZARAGOZA

Over the years, the name of the Roman Emperor Caesar Augusta shortened to give the town its name.