Takes its name partly from Britain and partly from the Columbia whose crew first explored the area. It also references the Columbia District, the British name for the territory drained by the Columbia River, which was the namesake of the pre–Oregon Treaty Columbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company. The adjective "British" was added to the name to distinguish it from Colombia and from what became the state of Washington in the United States, whose name was originally going to be Columbia, after the river. Columbia is a poetic name for the American continent discovered by Christopher Columbus. Columbia was often personified as a woman or goddess wearing a gown and Phrygian cap, which was meant to signify the spirit of freedom and the pursuit of liberty.
Is most commonly believed to have come from the Cree word manitowapow or the Ojibwa word manitobau, both meaning "the strait of the spirit". It is unclear why this name was chosen for the province, though it is generally thought to be named after straits in Lake Manitoba.
(Latin: Terra Nova) Was named by its European discoverers before 1500; possibly by the Portuguese explorer João Vaz Corte-Real in 1472, making it the oldest European name in North America.
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.
Named after Lake Ontario, which got its name from a First Nations language, most likely from onitariio, meaning "beautiful lake", or kanadario, translated as "sparkling" or "beautiful", or possibly from Wyandot (Huron)ontare ("lake").
Named in 1798 after Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the son of George III and lieutenant-general in British army in Canada. The next year, he would become commander-in-chief of North America, before being transferred to Gibraltar in 1802.
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.
Credited to FlorentinenavigatorGiovanni da Verrazzano, who first named a region around Chesapeake Bay Archadia (Arcadia) in 1524 because of "the beauty of its trees", according to his diary. Cartographers began using the name Arcadia to refer to areas progressively farther north until it referred to the French holdings in maritime Canada (particularly Nova Scotia). The -r- also began to disappear from the name on early maps, resulting in the current Acadia.[4]
Possibly derived from the Míkmaq word akatik, pronounced roughly "agadik", meaning "place", which French-speakers spelled as -cadie in place names such as Shubenacadie and Tracadie, possibly coincidentally.[5]
^Afable, Patricia O. and Madison S. Beeler (1996). "Place Names". In "Languages", ed. Ives Goddard. Vol. 17 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, pg. 191