STATE NAMES — HARRINGTOlSr 377 



What the source of Montalvo's name California may have been 

 remains a matter of conjecture. Did he make the word up out of 

 whole cloth, or did he follow some traditional word that came down 

 from the Middle Ages ? The Roland poem, which dates perhaps from 

 1150, has at the end of its line 2948 the strikingly similar form 

 "califerne" as the name of a region, perhaps situated near Africa; 

 and the Antioch poem, which is still earlier, dating perhaps from 

 1110, has "(h)oliferne" as the name of the sultancy of Aleppo and 

 Mosul, just beyond the Crusader kingdom of Antioch. May one of 

 these earlier forms have reached Montalvo in some way ? 



Connecticut. — According to historical information and the linguis- 

 tic studies of Siebert, the colony and later State name Comiecticut 

 was taken into English from the name of the Connecticut River, the 

 originating form having been in Mahican and other similar Algon- 

 quian dialects of southwestern New England, KwEnihtEkot, or some 

 form very similar to this, signifying "long river place." The Con- 

 necticut River, one of the long rivers that flow south to the southern 

 New England shore, evidently had this name in local and more re- 

 mote Indian dialects. The name Connecticut was applied to the river 

 as far north as Springfield, Mass. The etymology of Connecticut as 

 meaning "long river" was already on record in 1631. The ct in the 

 English version of the name is produced by analogy with the English 

 word "connect." 



Trumbull in his Natick dictionary translates the word as "a wave 

 or rough watered river," while Heckewelder in his "Historical Ac- 

 count" says that its Delaware cognate means "a rapid stream." 



Colorado. — The Latin adjective colooraatus., means red or brown. 

 From it comes Spanish "Colorado," the usual Spanish adjective mean- 

 ing red. Colorado as applied to the Colorado River is a descriptive 

 term, referring to the red color of the water. Indians speaking many 

 languages, living more or less in the vicinity of the Colorado River, 

 tended to use this description of the river in addition, perhaps, to 

 other methods of reference. The area of Colorado State is derived 

 from three sources : the Louisiana Purchase, Texas, and the Mexican 

 cession. Colorado Territory was created in 1846, Colorado State in 

 1876. The name Colorado was adopted because the Colorado River 

 had its headwaters in the western half of Colorado Territory. The 

 principal affluent of the Colorado River in Colorado was called Grand 

 River, with the result that for many years there was no stream called 

 Colorado within the limits of the present State. The name of the 

 Grand River was changed to the Colorado River by the Colorado State 

 Legislature on March 24, 1921, and by act of Congress, approved July 

 25, 1921. 



Delaware. — The name of the State of Delaware was taken from 

 the river of that name, at the mouth of which the State of Delaware is 



