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All 50 states

States by letter, A to Z

The 50 state names begin with only 19 of the 26 letters. M and N lead with eight states each, followed by A, I and W with four apiece, while B, E, J, Q, X, Y and Z begin no state at all. Behind the letters are names borrowed from Native American languages, European kings and queens, Spanish explorers and, in a few cases, origins no one has been able to pin down.

Checked against state law and official sources · verified October 23, 2026

Uneven letters

State names cluster at a few letters. M has eight states, all single words, from Maine to Montana. N also has eight, thanks to the four “New” states, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York, along with North Carolina and North Dakota. A, I and W have four each. Twelve letters start just one or two states, and seven letters, B, E, J, Q, X, Y and Z, start none at all.

Names run from four letters, in Iowa, Ohio and Utah, to 13 in Massachusetts, North Carolina and South Carolina. Ten state names are two words long: the four New states, the two Carolinas and two Dakotas, Rhode Island and West Virginia. Twenty-one names end in A, many of them because of the Latin “-ia” ending that Europeans used for the names of lands, as in Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Where the names come from

About half the states have names taken from Native American languages. Most came by way of a river, as with Connecticut, Mississippi, Ohio, Minnesota and Wisconsin, or a people, as with Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts and Utah. The words were often written down by French or Spanish explorers who heard them from a third group, so the spellings, and sometimes the meanings, shifted along the way. Missouri is popularly said to mean “muddy water,” but the authorities the state cites read it as “town of the large canoes.” Texas comes from a Caddo word for “friends.”

Eleven states are named after people, most of them European royalty. Virginia, and with it West Virginia, honors Queen Elizabeth I; Maryland honors Queen Henrietta Maria; Georgia, King George II; Louisiana, King Louis XIV; and the two Carolinas, King Charles I, through the Latin form of his name, Carolus. New York is named for a duke and Delaware for a governor of Virginia, Lord De La Warr. Pennsylvania honors not William Penn, the colony’s founder, but his father: Penn wrote that he had wanted to call it New Wales or plain Sylvania. Washington is the only state named after an individual American.

Spanish supplied several more. Colorado means “colored red,” Nevada “snow-covered,” Florida recalls the Easter season when Ponce de León arrived in 1513, and Montana is Latin and Spanish for mountainous country. California comes from a gold-rich imaginary island in a Spanish novel of the early 1500s. Vermont is a coined French phrase for “green mountain.”

Names nobody can explain

A few names remain mysteries. Idaho was sold to Congress as an Indian word meaning “gem of the mountains,” but the word was probably invented. No one is sure whether Maine comes from a French province or from the “main” land, or whether Rhode Island owes its name to the Greek island of Rhodes or to the “red island” of Dutch sailors. Oregon first appears in writing in 1765, and Kentucky’s Native American source has never been proven.

Every state, A to Z, and where its name comes from

A4 states

Alabama
Named for the Alabama people, whose name also went to the Alabama River. It is most often read as "vegetation gatherers," from a Choctaw expression about clearing plants.
Alaska
From the Unangan (Aleut) word for the Alaska Peninsula, meaning "the mainland." The popular translation "the Great Land" is considered mistaken.
Arizona
Disputed. One view traces it to an O'odham place name meaning "place of the little spring"; another to Basque words meaning "the good oak tree," after a Sonora ranch settlement of the 1730s.
Arkansas
From the name other tribes used for the Quapaw people, written down by French explorers as Akansea and Acansa. An 1881 law settled that it is spelled Arkansas but pronounced "Arkansaw."

C3 states

California
Generally traced to an early 16th-century Spanish romance that described an imaginary island called California, rich in gold and ruled by Queen Calafia.
Colorado
Spanish for "colored red," first given to the muddy, reddish Colorado River. Congress nearly called the territory Idaho.
Connecticut
From the Connecticut River, whose Mohegan name the state translates as "long river place."

D1 state

Delaware
English, not Native American. Delaware Bay was named in 1610 for Lord De La Warr, the governor of Virginia, and the name passed to the river, a people who lived along it and the state.

F1 state

Florida
Spanish. Ponce de León named it La Florida in 1513, arriving in the Easter season, Pascua Florida, in a land thick with plants.

G1 state

Georgia
Named for King George II, who granted the colony's charter in 1732.

H1 state

Hawaii
From the largest island, Hawaiʻi. Tradition says it was named for Hawaiʻiloa, a navigator who found the island.

I4 states

Idaho
Unknown. It was promoted around 1860 as an Indian word meaning "gem of the mountains," but the word was probably made up, most likely by a lobbyist named George M. Willing.
Illinois
From the Illinois (Illiniwek) confederation of tribes. Recent study traces it to a word meaning roughly "he speaks in the ordinary way," which reached the French through the Ojibwa.
Indiana
"Land of the Indians." The name was first used around 1768 for a tract in what is now West Virginia and was reused by Congress for Indiana Territory in 1800.
Iowa
Named for the Ioway people. The meaning is uncertain; the state's official site suggests "sleepy ones."

K2 states

Kansas
Named for the Kaw (Kansa) people, the "People of the South Wind."
Kentucky
From a Native American language, but no origin is proven. Suggestions include words for meadow or level land, and a Wyandot phrase often given as "land of tomorrow."

L1 state

Louisiana
Named La Louisiane by the French explorer La Salle in 1682, in honor of King Louis XIV.

M8 states

Maine
No one knows for certain. The leading theories point to the French province of Maine or to sailors' term for the "main" land, as opposed to the islands offshore.
Maryland
Named for Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of King Charles I, who granted the colony's charter in 1632.
Massachusetts
Named for the Massachusett people. The usual reading is "at or about the great hill," after the Great Blue Hill south of Boston.
Michigan
From an Ojibwe word meaning "great lake," first used for Lake Michigan.
Minnesota
From the Dakota name of the Minnesota River, built on mni, water. The Minnesota Historical Society translates it as the land of "cloudy waters."
Mississippi
From the river, whose Ojibwe name, Misi-ziibi, means "great river."
Missouri
Named for the Missouria people. It is popularly said to mean "muddy water," but authorities read it as "town of the large canoes" or "wooden canoe people."
Montana
From the Latin and Spanish word for mountainous country. Congress gave the name to the new territory in 1864.

N8 states

Nebraska
From Omaha and Otoe words for the Platte River, meaning "flat water," because the river is wide and shallow.
Nevada
Spanish for "snow-covered," taken from the Sierra Nevada. The state was nearly called Washoe.
New Hampshire
Named for Hampshire, the English county that was home to Captain John Mason, who received the land grant in 1629 but never saw the colony.
New Jersey
Named for the island of Jersey in the English Channel, home of Sir George Carteret, one of the two men granted the land in 1664.
New Mexico
Spanish, Nuevo México. Explorers in the 1500s named it after Mexico, the Aztec heartland, more than 200 years before the modern country took the name.
New York
Named for James, Duke of York, the brother of King Charles II, after the English took New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664.
North Carolina
From Carolus, Latin for Charles, after a 1629 grant by King Charles I. The northern settlements got their own governor in 1710.
North Dakota
From Dakota Territory, named for the Dakota people. The word is usually translated as "friend" or "ally."

O3 states

Ohio
From the Ohio River, whose Seneca name means "good river" or "great river."
Oklahoma
From the Choctaw words okla, "people," and humma, "red." Choctaw delegate Allen Wright proposed the name after the Civil War.
Oregon
First written as "Ouragon" in 1765, for the river now called the Columbia. Where the word came from is still argued.

P1 state

Pennsylvania
"Penn's Woods," from the family name Penn and the Latin for woods. It honors Admiral Sir William Penn, the father of the colony's founder, who had wanted to call it New Wales or plain Sylvania.

R1 state

Rhode Island
Uncertain. Verrazzano compared an island off the coast to the Greek island of Rhodes, and Dutch sailors called Aquidneck Island "red island" after its soil.

S2 states

South Carolina
From Carolus, Latin for Charles, after a 1629 grant by King Charles I. The southern part of the colony became South Carolina.
South Dakota
From Dakota Territory, named for the Dakota people. The word means "friend" or "ally."

T2 states

Tennessee
Named for Tanasi, a leading Cherokee town on the Little Tennessee River in the early 1700s. The word may be older than the Cherokee presence.
Texas
From a Caddo word meaning "friends" or "allies," which the Spanish wrote down as tejas. The state motto, Friendship, echoes it.

U1 state

Utah
Named for the Ute people, by way of the Spanish "Yuta." The original meaning is disputed.

V2 states

Vermont
A coined name meant to say "green mountain" in French. It was first recorded in 1777; the state was nearly called New Connecticut.
Virginia
Named for Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen," who allowed Walter Raleigh to use the name in 1584.

W4 states

Washington
Named for George Washington. Settlers had asked for "Columbia Territory," but Congress changed it in 1853, partly to avoid confusion with the District of Columbia.
West Virginia
From Virginia, which it split from during the Civil War. Voters first approved the name "Kanawha," but the 1861 convention changed it.
Wisconsin
From a Miami name for the Wisconsin River, written "Meskousing" by Marquette in 1673. Historians now read it as "river running through a red place."
Wyoming
From a Delaware (Lenape) word meaning "at the big plains," first used for the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania.

Questions people ask

Which letter starts the most state names?
M and N, with eight each. The M states are Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri and Montana; the N states are Nebraska, Nevada, the four "New" states and North Carolina and North Dakota.
Which letters do not start any state name?
Seven - B, E, J, Q, X, Y and Z.
Which state names have only four letters?
Iowa, Ohio and Utah.
What is the longest state name?
Massachusetts, North Carolina and South Carolina each have 13 letters. Massachusetts is the longest written as a single word.
Which states start and end with the same letter?
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and Ohio.
How many state names come from Native American languages?
About half. At least 24 states take their names from Indigenous words, usually by way of a river or a people, and the names of Arizona, Idaho and Oregon may have Indigenous roots too, though their origins are disputed.

Sources