NAME ANCESTRY

What does "Alaska" mean? Discover the origins of 14 state names!

Image: Pin Adventure Map

Ever wondered where most US states’ names come from? From Native American roots to foreign or made-up words, the stories behind many of them are riddled with surprising historical references. Although the origin of some US states’ names is fairly obvious, many derive from unexpected people or places. The origin of names like Colorado, Montana, or Nevada are easy to infer —especially if you know a bit of Spanish— but many others have Native American origins with intriguing meanings. Some are even derived from fiction. If you ever wanted to know where names like Oregon, Connecticut, or Wisconsin come from, you are in the right place. Enjoy the surprising etymologies behind some of the names that make our country.

Image: Joshua Woroniecki

Interestingly, for a state whose main economic activity is agriculture, the word Alabama comes from the Choctaw language and can be translated as "plant-cutters" or "vegetation pickers", recalling the farming practices of the Native Americans that lived in this area.

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Alaska is a corruption of an Aleut word that means "mainland", but can be translated literally as "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed". This is one of those names that manage to bring poetry into a word as simple and down-to-earth as land.

Image: Vital Sinkevich

This one comes from… a Spanish adventure novel! Bet you didn’t expect that. In Las Sergas de Esplandin by Garcia Ordez de Montalvo, a book from the 1500s, there is a fictional place called the "Island of California". Even when the modern state of California is clearly not an island, some die-hard fanatic of the novel decided to bring the name to life here in the U.S.

Image: Juliette Dickens

Derived from the Algonquian word quinnehtukqut, which can be translated as "besides the long tidal river", in reference to the river Connecticut. If you are wondering what the "tidal" part means exactly, this is because the Connecticut River's flow and level are effectively influenced by tides along much of its course. Certainly some amazing insight into the rigorous knowledge of local hydrology that Native Americans managed to accrue over the centuries.

Image: Luke McKeown

Although the origin of this name is disputed, there are two main theories. One suggests that the islands may have been named after Hawaii Loa, their traditional discoverer. However, others have speculated that it is actually derived from the ancient Polynesian word hawaiki, meaning "place of the gods".

Image: NEOM

Another crazy one. Although the name was first claimed to be derived from a Shoshone word that meant "Gem of the Mountains", it is highly likely that the word was fabricated by George M. Willing, and meant as a practical joke.

Image: Stéfano Girardelli

Quite literally, "land of Indians", using a Latin suffix. The word Indians originally referred to the ancient dwellers of the shores of the Indus River, in South and Central Asia.

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"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore!" said Dorothy, from The Wizard of Oz, right after a rampant tornado literally lifted her house in the air and took it to God knows where. Well, this US state’s fame for violent winds predates even the first settlers, since Kansas is a Native American word used by the Dakota, strongly related to the idea of "wind".

Image: Drew Beamer

This state owes its name to an Iroquoian word that means "land of tomorrow". Quite a blockbuster-worthy movie title, if you ask me.

Image: Mercedes Mehling

The origin story behind the name of "The Pine Tree State" is still disputed. However, there are some interesting theories. One states that it derives from "mainland", as a form of distinction from the many coastal islands in the vicinity. Other theories propose that it was named in honor of Henrietta Maria, queen of England, or after the province of Mayne in France.

Image: Anthony Cantin

To the Native Americans that lived in this region, Missouri meant "town of the large canoes", as the Missouri tribes were renowned for their skill in making dugout canoes.

Image: Ashley Levinson

A largely disputed one. Many suggest that the name has Spanish origins, being similar to other words like orejón (meaning "big ear") or orégano, in reference to a type of plant (similar to the Mediterranean oregano) that grows in the southern part of the state.

Image: Donnie Rosie

This is the only state that has a part of its founder’s name in it. It is widely believed that Pennsylvania means "Penn’s Woodland", and was named as such in honor of Sir William Penn, father of its founder William Penn.

Image: Brydon McCluskey

This is probably a French corruption of a native Miami word that meant "it lies red" or "river running through a red place", in reference to the bed of the river Wisconsin.

If our quick dive into the peculiar world of US state names wasn’t enough to quench your curiosity, stay around! We will keep uploading more content related to language and the weird stories and etymologies behind many English and foreign words.

Changing names takes courage

For better or for worse? 10 brands that changed their names

Image: Kristian Egelund

Building a brand takes time, effort, money, and a lot of other things. That’s why, when someone throws everything overboard and starts again with a new name, more than a few eyebrows are raised. Sometimes these kinds of decisions are reversed. Prince changed his by-then household name to a symbol that no one knew how to pronounce—and later returned to being Prince. But sometimes, these name changes are successful. Take a look at the following ten examples of now-famous brands and their previously, often not-so-great, names. Did you know any of them?

Image: Giorgio Trovato

No one would argue that a name like AuctionWeb is more descriptive than eBay, right? Still, the online auction juggernaut’s founder, Pierre Omidyar, decided that eBay was a better fit. In 1997, he officially changed the company’s name and began advertising the website on a massive scale.

For some reason, Omidyar initially wanted to buy the echobay.com domain, but it was already registered by a Canadian mining company. Dropping the "cho" led to the name eBay.com.

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Image: wu yi

Everybody knows Nike, the global sportswear giant. But in its humble origins, it went by a different name: Blue Ribbon Sports. The brand had a distribution deal with Onitsuka (now Asics), a Japanese company. When that partnership ended, Blue Ribbon Sports changed its name to Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory.

Its famous "swoosh" logo was introduced at the same time. Carolyn Davidson, a design student, charged $35 for the logo, although Knight eventually gave her 500 shares of stock in 1983.

Image: Muhammad Asyfaul

Confinity was founded in 1998, originally aiming to develop security software for handheld devices, but it quickly transitioned to the digital payments market. The team began developing a digital wallet, which allowed users to store and transfer money electronically.

After merging with Elon Musk’s online bank, X.com, in 2000, the company was rebranded as X for a short time and later became PayPal.

Image: Jaimie Harmsen

Early internet users will remember the days when Yahoo! was the go-to search engine before Google. But even before that, founders Jerry Yang and David Filo—then students at Stanford University—created a website called Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. It served as a directory of websites organized hierarchically, rather than as a searchable index of pages.

Thinking the name was too long to remember, they renamed the site Yahoo. Since the word "Yahoo" was already trademarked, they added an exclamation mark, creating Yahoo!.

Image: Aleks Dorohovich

In case you haven’t noticed, the full Kentucky Fried Chicken name hasn’t appeared in the brand’s official identity for quite some time. Founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in Corbin, Kentucky, the company became a fast-food behemoth that popularized fried chicken worldwide.

In 1991, the brand officially adopted the shorter KFC, a name it was already widely known by. Kyle Craig, president of KFC U.S., admitted the change was partly an attempt to distance the chain from the unhealthy connotations of the word "fried."

Image: Good Faces Agency

Different name, same concept—that could sum up MatchBox’s rebranding as Tinder. The original app launched at a hackathon in 2012, but the team soon realized the name was too similar to Match.com. They rebranded as Tinder, shifting the imagery from a box of matches to the small pieces of wood used to start a fire.

The company’s flame-themed logo remained consistent throughout the change.

Image: Alexander Shatov

Noah Glass developed a startup called Odeo as a platform for podcasting, but the venture hit a major setback when Apple announced that iTunes would include its own podcasting service. One of the employees then proposed an idea focused on "status"—short updates about what people were doing at a given moment.

This idea became Twitter, initially called Twttr, a service where you could text one number and have the message broadcast to all your friends. Years later, after acquiring the company, Elon Musk rebranded it simply as X.

Image: Mathias Reding

Every day, a sandwich shop is born somewhere in the world. In 1965, 17-year-old Fred DeLuca opened a sandwich shop to help pay for medical school, using a loan from Dr. Peter Buck, a family friend. In gratitude, he named it "Pete’s Super Submarines."

As the brand grew, the name was shortened to Pete’s Subway, and by the 1970s, the "Pete’s" was dropped altogether. According to one theory, the change was partly because "Pete’s Submarines" sounded a lot like "Pizza Marines" when advertised on the radio.

Image: Christian Wiediger

Before settling on Amazon, Jeff Bezos toyed with several names for his online bookstore, including "Cadabra" and "Relentless." He even registered Relentless.com, which still redirects to Amazon today.

Bezos wanted a name starting with "A" to appear early in alphabetical listings, and he was drawn to the Amazon River—vast, powerful, and world-famous. The choice was made, and the rest is history.

Image: Deeksha Pahariya

Everybody knows Instagram, the ubiquitous photo-sharing app that invaded every nook and cranny of the Earth with smartphones and selfie sticks. But before it became the photo-sharing giant we know today, Instagram started life as Burbn—a check-in app inspired by Foursquare, with extras like gaming and photo sharing

Founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger noticed that users overwhelmingly favored the photo feature. They stripped away the rest, rebranding as Instagram—a blend of "instant" and "telegram."