States Named After Real Historical Individuals Quiz

Answer:

Here are the states that are named after real people in history:

Delaware is named for Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, the first colonial governor of Virginia, after being appointed in 1610. Explorer Samuel Argall was the first person to apply the name Delaware to the Delaware Bay, naming it after the governor. Later, the name extended to the river, the Native American tribe (Lenape), and eventually the state itself.

Georgia is the only U.S. state named directly after a specific British monarch, as opposed to royal or noble titles. Georgia was named after King George II of Great Britain and Ireland from 1727 to 1760. In 1732, King George II granted a royal charter establishing the Province of Georgia, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The colony was named "Georgia" as a tribute to the king, with the name derived from the Latin form of George, Georgius.

Louisiana was named in honor of the "Sun King", Louis XIV, ruler of France from 1643 to 1715. On April 9, 1682, French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the vast Mississippi River basin for France, and named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV. Louisiana literally means "Land of Louis" as the French suffix -iane (like the English -ia) indicates a land or region associated with a person, so La Louisiane translates to "the land of Louis."

Maryland is named in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of King Charles I of England. She was the daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici. In 1632, King Charles I granted a charter to Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore to establish a new English colony named Terra Mariae ("Mary's Land" in Latin in North America.

New York was named in honor of James II of England, who was Duke of York when the colony received its new name, after the Dutch had established it as New Netherland, with its main settlement called New Amsterdam, now known as New York City. England captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, whereupon Charles II of England granted the territory to his younger brother, James, Duke of York; the rest of New Netherland fell to England soon after.

Both North Carolina and South Carolina were named in honor of King Charles I of England ("Carolus" is Latin for Charles), although it could be argued that King Charles II deserves at least some of the credit as well. In 1629, Charles I granted a charter for the territory south of Virginia to Robert Heath, the Attorney General for England and Wales. Heath was the one who proposed the name Carolana, for the territory. The colony however, failed to take hold firmly, and in time, Heath fell out of political favor and his charter over the territory eventually lapsed. Several decades later, Charles II of England granted a new charter for the region to the eight Lords Proprietors in 1663, with the name staying essentially the same, Carolina. It remained a single English colony until administrative difficulties led to separate governments in 1712. By 1729, the two separate colonies became the royal colonies of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Pennsylvania is mostly thought of in association with the state's founder, William Penn, because after all, he was founder and governed the colony as a place for religious freedom - particularly for Quakers. However, the state's name is actually a commemoration of founder William Penn's father, Admiral Sir William Penn (1621-1670), who had served as one of England's leading naval commanders during the English Civil War and the Anglo-Dutch Wars. After Admiral Penn died in 1670, England owed his estate approximately £16,000 in unpaid loans and back salary. That debt was settled in 1681 when Charles II of England granted the Admiral's son, William Penn, a tract of North American land, which would later become Pennsylvania. And actually, Penn did not want the colony named after his family. He proposed the name "Sylvania" instead, Latin for "forest". But King Charles II insisted on adding the prefix "Penn", thereby creating Pennsylvania or "Penn's Forest".

Both Virginia and West Virginia were named for Queen Elizabeth I of England, the "Virgin Queen" who reigned England from 1558-1603. In 1584, she granted Walter Raleigh a charter to establish an English colony in North America, and so he named the territory "Virginia" in her honor, after her status as the "Virgin Queen." In 1607, the first successful founding of a permanent settlement in North America was Jamestown by the Virginia Company of London. Nearly two centuries later, during the American Civil War, some of Virginia's northwestern counties opposed secession, so they separated from Virginia and became the state of West Virginia in the Union on June 20, 1863.

Washington is the only U.S. state named after a U.S. president, and the only state named after a U.S. Commander-in-Chief of the army. Named after founding father George Washington, the region was originally was part of Oregon Country, occupied by the United States and Great Britain. In 1848, the United States formed Oregon Territory, comprised of present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. Congress created the Washington Territory on March 2, 1853, by separating off the northern part of the Oregon Territory. It became the 42nd U.S. state on November 11, 1889, and its name, Washington, was chosen by Congress, honoring George Washington.

These are the choices of states that were not named after people:

Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León named Florida in 1513, after the Spanish phrase Pascua Florida, meaning "flowery Easter" or "feast of flowers."

John Mason named his land grant "New Hampshire" in 1629, in honor of Hampshire, England, where he was a landowner and served as governor of the English port of Portsmouth. Hampshire comes from "Hamtun", a name meaning "home settlement" in Old English.

North Dakota and South Dakota aren't named after an individual historical person, but rather the Dakota people in general, a branch of the Sioux. The word Dakota means "friend" or "ally," in the Dakota language.

The most commonly accepted explanation of what Rhode Island is named for is that it was named after the Greek island of Rhodes. Some theories posit that in 1614, explorer Adriaen Block called an island in Narragansett Bay "Roodt Eylandt" ("Red Island" in Dutch) because of its reddish appearance.