Canadian Provincial Name Etymologies

• Alberta named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (d. 1939), the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria.

• British Columbia takes its name partly from Britain and partly from the Columbia whose crew first explored the area. Columbia in turn is a poetic name for the American continent discovered by Christopher Columbus.

• Manitoba is most commonly believed to have come from the Cree word manitowapow or the Ojibwa word manitobau, both meaning "the strait of the spirit".

• New Brunswick named in honour of the Duke of Brunswick-Lneburg (the future King George IV of the United Kingdom), son of King George III of the United Kingdom.

• Newfoundland and Labrador new found land, name dating to 1502; llavrador ("farmer"), called for a crewman of John Cabot's, who sighted it.

• Northwest Territories named for its location northwest of Lake Superior. The territory once comprised virtually all Canadian land northwest of that lake; it has since been split up into several other provinces and territories, but has retained its name.

• Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". In the 1620s a group of Scots was sent by Charles I to set up a colony, and the Latin name is used in Sir William Alexander's 1621 land grant. Although this settlement was abandoned because of a treaty between Britain and France, the name remains.

• Nunavut means our land in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit.

• Ontario got its name from a Native American language, most likely from onitariio, meaning "beautiful lake", or kanadario, translated as "sparkling" or "beautiful", or possibly from Wyandot (Huron) ontare ("lake").

• Prince Edward Island named after Prince Edward Augutus, Duke of York, the brother of King George III of the United Kingdom and a commander of troops in Anglo-French fighting in Canada that was occurring at the time the name was given.

• Quebec comes from the Micmac word Gepg meaning "strait", or possibly Algonquian kebek meaning "narrow passage" originally referring to the narrowing of the St. Lawrence River off what is currently Quebec City.

• Saskatchewan The province's name comes from the Saskatchewan River, whose name is Cree for "swift flowing river" kisiskatchewan.

• Yukon takes its name from the Yukon River, whose name in turn means great river in Gwich'in.

See also

• Canada
• Mexican state name etymologies
• List of U.S. state name etymologies
• List of subnational name etymologies

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