The origin of every US state's name

Hit me with some more interesting US place name origins. Comment below. And remember you can get TypeAI PREMIUM now! Start your FREE trial by clicking the link here: bit.ly/Mar24RobWords

50% - Tribe X was living here 50% - Great River

The most fun theory of how Oregon got its name comes from the 1945 book "Names on the Land" by George R. Stewart. As the story goes, a French explorer in 1715 made a map where he labeled an upper tributary of the Mississippi the "Ouisconsinc" (this would later be Anglicized as "Wisconsin"). But a careless scribe back in France created a copy of the map where he mistakenly changed "Ouisconsinc" to "Ouariconsint." The copier also ran out of room, so he put the "sint" underneath the rest of the word, with a hyphen. Subsequent copiers missed the "sint" entirely, leaving "Ouaricon." Eventually, in the minds of explorers, "Wisconsin" and "Ouaricon" became two distinct rivers: one the existing Wisconsin River we know today, the other a great, mythical river that we will surely find if we just keep going west. But they pushed all the way to the Pacific and didn't find the river, so they named the coastal region they'd found after the nonexistent river. Only by this time the name of the river had morphed from Ouaricon to Ouragon to Ourgan to Ourigan to—you guessed it—Oregon. So Oregon is literally just the word Wisconsin after a long game of telephone.

Being a tribal member and living in Oklahoma. We don’t have a problem with the state name here. It works for us.

Rhode Island's name originally referred to Aquidneck Island (southern part of the state where city of Newport is), named by early explorers who compared its appearance to the Greek island of Rhodes. The name later extended to the entire state, formally known as "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," but recently shortened to "State of Rhode Island" in 2020 to avoid associations with the term "plantations."

About Vermont not being Montvert: there is evidence that when French and a Germanic language come into contact, sometimes placenames undergo a switch of word order, e.g. Neufchâteau (Belgium) or Neuchâtel (Switzerland). In some corner cases, French adjectives also come before the noun (e.g. "petit"), which is also thought to be a Germanic influence.

A point about the name of Vermont and the possibility of it coming from French with a strange word order: French actually does reverse noun and adjective order quite often when it comes to place names and more generally for poetic reasons, or at least it used to. It's a feature that has dropped from modern French, but might still have been commonplace back then. I can totally picture the French looking at said mountains and calling it "le Vert-Mont"

H. B. Cushman, author of "History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez" (first published 1899) spent his early years around the Choctaw. In his book, he recounted stories he heard growing up. One of them was the Choctaw origin story from their oral history. The story tells of the time of the great migration from the west to the east. When the people came to the river, they were amazed. Never had they seen such a moving body of water. According to Cushman, the people called the river "Misha Sipokni" ("beyond age") saying that surely it could have neither beginning nor end. But... going quite a bit further north we find the name Mississauga which would indicate that Mississippi is not of Choctaw origin. The book is actually an interesting read since it is his childhood memories living among the Choctaw before The Removal. And as always, love the video!!

Thank you Rob & team! You all deliver in spades.

The final two made me laugh. 😆 Maybe Oregon is where people wound up after the California gold rush ended. “Ore gone.” 😉

I hadn't give the origins of the U.S. state names any thought, but this was really fascinating, thank you so much. I love your gently informative style as well. All together a real delight.

Do the same with Canadian provinces and territories. I live in Nova Scotia, New Scotland, but there’s tons of English, German, Irish, Danish, even Icelandic people here.

For Minnesota, according to Šišókaduta, a Dakota language instructor at the university of Minnesota: "A literal translation would be clear water," Šišókaduta said. "But what it ... really refers to is where the waters reflect the skies, because the water is clear and still." Some people interpret that as the source of the cloudy water - it’s simply water reflecting clouds. I’ve always heard it translated as “water that reflects the sky,” and I thought that was such a beautiful name for our state. The land of the waters that reflect the sky.

Love your work rob! Please keep posting!

I found your channel yesterday it’s great really enjoying it learning so much.

You did a great job of presenting this at a pretty rapid pace, while somehow making it feel casually paced. Well done.

Lake Char­gogg­a­gogg­man­chaugg­a­gogg­chau­bun­a­gung­a­maugg officially known as Lake Chaubunagungamaug, also known as Webster Lake in Massachusetts. It has the longest name of any land mark in the US It translates roughly from the nipmuc language to "fishing place at the boundary" Up until 2020 the official name of Rhode Island was State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Providence plantations being the City of Providence.

I love the historical references you put into it. Very interesting and instructive.

On Oregon: According to the records of the state, "The first written record of the name "Oregon" comes to us from a 1765 proposal for a journey written by Major Robert Rogers, an English army officer. It reads, "The rout... is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon." Also, the name was originally applied to the entire region, in 1848 the United States Congress approved the formation of the Oregon Territory. At the time, the Oregon Territory included all the present day states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and even parts of Montana and Wyoming. The route the homesteaders (pioneers) followed through a pass in the northern Rockies and along the Snake and Columbia Rivers to reach the Pacific coast was called the Oregon Trail.

Etymology of U.S. Territories & The Federal District: Puerto Rico: Rich Port (Spanish) Guam: What We Have (Chamorro, "Guahan") American Samoa: Place of the moa (Maori) U.S. Virgin Islands: Named for St. Ursula Northern Mariana Islands: Named for Spanish Queen Mariana of Austria Washington D.C.: President Washington, District of Columbia (Columbia is a Poetic name for the U.S., named after Christopher Columbus) Etymology of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands: Baker Island: Named for Michael Baker (Nicknamed, New Nantucket)(Hawaiian laborers named Baker Island "Paukeaho", meaning "out of breath") Howland Island: Named Howland after the lookout who spotted it (Originally named Worth by a whaling ship's captain) Jarvis Island: Named for Edward, Thomas and William Jarvis (Nicknamed, Bunker Island) Johnston Atoll: Named for Captain Charles James Johnston Kingman Reef: Named for Captain W. E. Kingman (Previously charted as, Caldew Reef and Maria Shoal) Midway Atoll: Midway is roughly equidistant between North America and Asia (Hawaiian, "Kuaihelani", the backbone of heaven, & "Pihemanu", The loud din of birds) Palmyra Atoll: Named for U.S. trading ship Palmyra (Itself named for the ancient Syrian city) Wake Island: Named for either Captain Samuel Wake or Captain William Wake (Marshallese, "Ānen Kio", island of the kio flower) Navassa Island: Named Navaza from Spanish for plain or flat (French, "Île de la Navasse", Haitian Creole, "Lanavaz") Etymology of U.S. Compact of Free Association Nations: Marshall Islands: Islands of the Marshallese (Marshallese, "Ṃajeḷ") Micronesia: The region of small islands (Italian) Palau: Village (Palauan, "Belau" or "Beluu")