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Colony Names 418 Views
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Description:
So wait. England didn’t just buy a "baby country" book and start flipping through the pages, waiting to be inspired? "What do you guys think about Georgeland?" "Oh, really? I think he looks more like a New Algonqua…" How did it really go down?
Transcript
- 00:07
How the Colonies Got Their Names, a la Shmoop
- 00:12
You ever wonder how things get their names?
- 00:18
Ottomans? Chevrolets?
- 00:22
Oprah?
- 00:25
What about this country? Where do the states get their names?
Full Transcript
- 00:30
Specifically, how were the original thirteen colonies named?
- 00:36
Let's start with the first colony founded: Virginia.
- 00:41
Or the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, as they called it then. They liked to complicate things.
- 00:48
The original colony of Virginia encompassed
- 00:50
what is today Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia.
- 00:55
It was named after Queen Elizabeth. So why not call it "Elizabethtown?"
- 01:00
Well, aside from copyright issues, Elizabeth was known as the Virgin Queen. Hence "Virginia."
- 01:10
Along the same lines, Georgia was named after King George II.
- 01:16
What about the Carolinas? The North and South parts are pretty obvious...
- 01:20
But what about the Carolina part? Was there a Queen Caroline?
- 01:25
Nope. Carolina was a language that local Algonquin Indians spoke.
- 01:33
Delaware also gained its name from the natives who inhabited the colony.
- 01:39
Connecticut is an Anglicized version of the Algonquian word for "on the long river."
- 01:46
Quinatucquet. Say that three times fast.
- 01:51
The Massachusett was also an Algonquin tribe,
- 01:55
giving their name to -- you guessed it --
- 02:00
Massachussets.
- 02:03
So was there a Hampshire tribe?
- 02:06
Or a Rhode tribe?
- 02:09
Nope. New Hampshire was simply named after Hampshire County in England.
- 02:16
If you didn't guess, the same goes for New York and New Jersey.
- 02:22
And Rhode Island was named because its shore resembled that of Rhodes in Greece.
- 02:32
Although folks at the time liked to call it "Rogue's Island" because of its reputation,
- 02:36
which is much cooler than the name.
- 02:40
And that leaves us with Maryland.
- 02:43
Maryland was unique. It was founded specifically as a Catholic colony.
- 02:49
The name is in reverence to the Virgin Mary.
- 02:54
And that's how the original Thirteen Colonies got their names.
- 02:58
What about your state? Your city?
- 03:01
Do you know how they were named?
- 03:04
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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