List of Canadian provincial and territorial name etymologies

This page lists the etymologies of the names of the provinces and territories of Canada.

Provinces

Alberta 

Named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939), the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of the Governor General of Canada Lord Lorne in the late 19th century.

British Columbia 

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.

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". It is unclear why this name was chosen for the province, though it is generally thought to be named after straits in Lake Manitoba.

New Brunswick 

Named in honour of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the ancestral home of the British king George III.

Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland

(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.

Labrador

Probably named after João Fernandes Lavrador, a Portuguese navigator who visited the area in 1498, whose surname means "farmer".

Nova Scotia 

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.

Ontario 

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").

Prince Edward Island 

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.

Quebec 

From the Míkmaq kepék, "strait, narrows"

Saskatchewan 

From the Saskatchewan River (Cree: kisiskāciwani-sīpiy, "swift flowing river").

Territories

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.

Nunavut 

Means "our land" in Inuktitut, a language of the Inuit.

Yukon 

Takes its name from the Yukon River, whose name in turn means "great river" in Gwichʼin.

Historical regions

• Acadia (French Acadie): origin disputed:

1. Credited to Florentine navigator Giovanni 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.
2. 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.

• Nunatsiavut: Inuktitut, meaning "our beautiful land".

See also

• Locations in Canada with an English name
• List of Canadian place names of Ukrainian origin
• List of place names in Canada of Aboriginal origin
• List of etymologies of country subdivision names
• Name of Canada
• Origins of names of cities in Canada
• Scottish place names in Canada