Oregon

The origin of the name of the U.S. state of Oregon is unknown, and a subject of some dispute. Historical usage The earliest evidence of the name Oregon has Spanish origins. The term "" comes from the historical chronicle (1598) written by Rodrigo Montezuma, a man of New Spain. His work made reference to the Columbia River when the Spanish explorers penetrated into the actual North American territory that became part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This chronicle is the first topographical and linguistic source with respect to the place name Oregon. Another possible source is the Spanish word oregano, which refers to a plant that grows in the southern part of the region. It is also possible that the American territory was named by the Spaniards, as there is a stream in Spain called the "" (which is located in the province of Ciudad Real), or that the "j" in the Spanish phrase "" was later corrupted into a "g". Another common claim is that the augmentative with "g" is present in both Portuguese and Spanish, analogous to Patagonia, where the name comes from the word "" ("" in Portuguese) meaning "big feet" or "big paw"; the word "ear" was applied in cartography to designate "shores", "banks", "limits" and "edges", much like the word "" currently in popular use in Spanish. Another early use of the name, spelled Ouragon, was by Major Robert Rogers in a 1765 petition to the Kingdom of Great Britain, seeking money to finance an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. The petition read "the rout... is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon...." Thus, the early Oregon Country and now the present-day state of Oregon took their names from the river now known as the Columbia River. In 1766, Rogers commissioned Jonathan Carver to lead such an expedition and in 1778, Carver used Oregon to label the Great River of the West in his book Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America. The poet William Cullen Bryant took the name from Carver's book and used it in his poem Thanatopsis, published in 1817, to refer to the recent discoveries of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which helped establish the name in modern use.