(Humor) How did your State (Province, Bundesland, British County, whatever you have) get its name?

Here’s a link with how states were named. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/31100/how-all-50-states-got-their-names

I live in Florida, and Florida was was named by Ponce de Leon who was looking for the fountain of youth. It’s Spanish and was describing the state as having an abundance of flowers or land of flowers.

I was born in the Washington DC. Washington was the first president. DC stands for District of Columbia, and Columbia is the feminine for Columbus and the US was sometimes referred to as Columbia at the time.

New York was New Amsterdam at first. Just as you might think the Dutch settled there. In NY there are many places that have Dutch names. Places like Fishkill, kil means stream. Catskill Mountains, there are many examples. York is a city in England, and the name comes from the Duke of York.

Thanks for the info and research—but this was really supposed to be funny—

Canada was named for the translation error in for “the village over there.”

Virginia was named after a supposed virgin girl who was said to have magical powers. The natives worshipped her and started calling the area Virginia’s land.

Alabama was named after a drunken night of betting. During a card game one of the elected and very powerful people in the region was a known alcoholic, and he was going to be the person to sign off on the naming of the state the next day. The other guy at the card table that night made up the name Alabama as a joke, and if he won the next hand the drunk politician was to sign off on it. I guess you know who won the hand.

Idaho was a contraction for I would hoe.

Those are all made up. Not sure if their funny, but maybe creative.

It was originally named Meißen, but later renamed through political shenanigans.

I assume there was an Old York…

@dabbler Yes. York is in England.

York is in England, but when the Dutch established New Amsterdam, they called the region Old York, so the rival British would think they had been there, in America, longer than the English had been in York, England.

When the British took over Old York, in the Americas, they named it New York, to reflect the changes.

Pennsylvania – named for its largest public university.

Canada: named by explorer Jacques Cartier after his observations on his famous expedition; originally pronounced “saw nada”

Maine – Mistakenly once believed to be important.

Newfoundland and Labrador – named after 2007 puppy bowl finalists.

Alaska – adopted after a flawed campaign to become the first state alphabetically.

California dates back to before the ability to to text people. In the old days one had to call on a telephone. When a sailor would meet a Cali girl in a bar, if she didn’t want to go out with him, she’d say “Cali phone ya”.

Alabama—named after Allan O’Bama, who ran against George Washington as the first U.S. President.

Mississippi—When people traveled from Lake Michigan to New Orleans, they’d stop for lunch on the Southern part of the river. Miss Issippi had a little Riverside Cafe near present-day Natchez. The entire river was named after her because she was THAT GOOD.

She married a Native American Chief named Chief Ippi —but there’s hardly any difference in the name change from Miss Issippi to Mrs Ippi.

Alaska was originally a part of Canada, not Russia. When Vitus Bering, asked George Steller, what the Queen called this territory, he said, “I don’t know. Alaska!”

When someone asked Erle Stanley Gardner “what did Della wear ?”

He replied, “I have stated, she wore a New Jersey”, thus naming two states in one scene.

Dick travelled down to Decatur
To bring Jane his biggest tomater

He’d hoped to get hitched,
But Jane went and ditched.

as for the tomater,
Dick ate ‘er.