THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN STATE NAMES 



By Frederick W. 



Lawrence 



T 



O ALL Americans the origin of 

 the names of our States should 

 prove an interesting subject, and 

 from it no small amount of history and 

 geography is to be learned. It is. how- 

 ever, a more complicated subject to trace 

 than the origin of the nomenclature of 

 European States, which, for the most 

 part, bear names derived simply from the 

 ancient tribes by which they were for- 

 merly inhabited. 



For example, England, Scotland. Hun- 

 gary, Belgium, France, and Switzerland 

 are names that come down to us more or 

 less directly from the earlier tribal in- 

 habitants of these countries. 



The State names of the United States 

 in many cases reflect the varied nation- 

 alities which first explored or colonized 

 these States. Many bear Indian names, 

 descriptive of some natural feature of 

 the region or taken from some tribe 

 living in that section, and we find a few 

 named for European sovereigns and 

 other individuals, while one bears the 

 name of a fabled island of romance and 

 another is named after a holy day. Still 

 others bear names that do not fall into 

 any particular class, but which must be 

 treated individually. 



Hence we find that, although the ma- 

 jority of our States have names of In- 

 dian origin, there are sufficient of Eng- 

 lish, French, and Spanish source to mark 

 the limits of the exploration and coloni- 

 zation of those nations. The Indian 

 names are typical of America, and al- 

 though the red man has dwindled, both 

 in numbers and power, his sonorous and 

 euphonious place-names confront us on 

 every hand. 



Strong ties bound our earlier settlers 

 to their mother countries, and from them 

 were derived most of the early geograph- 

 ical names. While we cannot but admit 

 that this may have shown a commendable 

 love of the mother land, as evinced by a 

 laudable desire to spread her place-names 

 into the wilderness, it is also manifest 

 that this tendency was in many cases in- 

 dicative of a paucity of imagination and 



a poor sense of the fitness of names. The 

 practice resulted in giving us many inap- 

 propriate place-names ; for names such as 

 Xew York, Maryland, and Xew Hamp- 

 shire in themselves convey nothing to 

 our minds. On the other hand, Ken- 

 tucky, Massachusetts, and Alabama, al- 

 though we may not be familiar with their 

 exact meaning, at least speak to us of an 

 earlier and sterner day, when the red 

 man roamed this land" and the settler 

 cleared his farm and built his home with 

 the ever-present menace of an Indian at- 

 tack in view. 



Indian names, when translated, gener- 

 ally tell of some natural feature of the 

 region — of a swiftly flowing river, a vast 

 lake, a mighty mountain — always some- 

 thing to which the Indian was bound by 

 every tie. 



THE INDIAN HAD NO ALPHABET TO RECORD 

 HIS NAMES 



Indian names have come to us in vari- 

 ous and changed forms, for the Indian 

 had no alphabet, and the white man had 

 to represent his place-names phonetically 

 as best he could; hence the wide diver- 

 gence in the spelling of many Indian 

 names. But, even in their changed forms, 

 they are always flowing and beautiful in 

 sound, as witness such names as Penob- 

 scot, Housatonic, Susquehanna, Kana- 

 wha. Catawba, and Tacoma. Xo names 

 brought in from a foreign land can equal 

 these for beauty and euphony, nor will 

 any others serve to commemorate the 

 vanishing race which once occupied our 

 country. 



Of our 48 States, we find that 25 bear 

 names of Indian origin, while 12 are 

 English, six Spanish, three French, and 

 two bear names that must be considered, 

 from a historical standpoint, American. 



Considering the States with English 

 names first, the origin of most of these 

 will be familiar to us from our studies in 

 American colonial history. The first of 

 these is New Hampshire, the original 

 territory of which was conveyed by a 

 patent of the Plymouth Company to John 



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