Flattened Water. Place of the Small Spring. Milky Water.
At first glance, these phrases might look like just a jumble of words, but they’re actually something way cooler: the literal translation of three state names in the United States. Can you guess which ones?
Expedia Canada put together this colorful map that shows the literal meaning of all 50 state names. And you might be surprised to know a particular state’s meaning.
As Expedia puts it, state etymologies “offer a unique insight into the forgotten history of the continent and may teach something new about your home.”
Want to dig into the state meanings a little more? Expedia Canada includes links to its sources. So you can decide for yourself if, for example, you’d prefer knowing Alabama as “tribal town,” the translation from the American Creek language, or the more popular translation of “vegetation gatherers” or “thicket-clearers,” derived from the Choctaw language.
A lot of the state meaning variation comes down to which Native American language source you go with. Others have an obvious connection to the English language (Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North/South Carolina, Virginia) or famous figures (Washington and Pennsylvania).
It’s fun knowing the backgrounds of the state names you’ve been saying since you learned to spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I (that’s “Great River” to you).
Here are Expedia’s top choices for each state’s literal meaning and the language each was derived from.
Note: There are conflicting origin stories for many state names. If you’ve done any digging into this yourself, you’ll find this to be true! This map and the etymology for each state name are based on Expedia’s research, which you can read more about here.
(Note: Other research shows that, in the Hawaiian language, Hawaii has no meaning. Unfortunately etymology, particularly in the case of state names, presents conflicting research. This is the case with Hawaii along with others on this list. The meaning listed here is in accordance with Expedia’s map and their research, which you can read more about here.)
Updated 8/14/17 to better reflect the etymology of several state names and highlight the conflicting research that exists around the meanings of state names.
