This is probably the most well-known state in the United States, alongside Texas, New York, and Florida. Among the largest states in the country, with among the highest populations, California is perhaps the state that has exported quite a fair bit of cultural, economic, and technological influences globally, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. Yet, there is a similarity this state shares with a relatively lesser known one like Idaho, that no one is sure where this name came from.

If you search around the Internet, most etymological theories would point you toward the 16th-century Spanish romance Las sergas de Esplandián. In fact, this is where in 1862, American author Edward Everett Hale concluded that this is what gave the American State today its name. But what of this novel drew so much attention?

To understand this, we need to examine how maps depicted California in that era. America in the 16th century was still a largely unknown realm to the average European, one that was open to mythology, fiction, and other forms of fantasy. Maps back then only depicted what the explorers could see, before devolving to sheer inaccuracy in bizarre ways because the explorers could not access those areas like the far north of Canada. Explorers arriving from Europe would also reach from the Atlantic, meaning that large extents of the Pacific coastline were largely unknown to the cartographer. This led to some interesting cartographical paradigms.

The most important of these paradigms was the thought that California was an island, separated from mainland North America by a strait. This is most famously depicted in the Johannes Vingboons Map of California dated to 1650, showing California (or in the map, appearing like Cali Fornia) as a large island. Today, we know that that depiction is erroneous, and that the ‘Island of California’ is actually Baja California, and the strait is the Gulf of California. So, what California meant to the 16th century European back then was essentially just the Baja California peninsula.

This takes us back to the romance Las sergas de Esplandián, which had that particular geographical description of California. In this novel by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, Las sergas de Esplandián described California as:

• On the ‘right hand of the Indies’
• An island
• Close to the ‘side of the Terrestrial Paradise’ (Likely mainland North America
• Inhabited exclusively by black women similar to that of the Amazons
• Having steep cliffs and rocky shores

While Baja California, at least to the 16th-century European, fits the first three of these points, some have criticised that this novel stood in relative obscurity until Hale pointed out this connection. But the first mention of California being applied to Baja California was made in the 1530s, a couple of decades after the novel’s publication. Perhaps eventually, someone would have stumbled upon Las sergas de Esplandián, and found the peninsula that would be called California.

To further explain the etymology of California, Hale suggested that this would have referred to the leader of an Islamic community, of a caliph, and that California would be referred to as the “Land of the Caliph”. Alternatively, because the novel describes California as being exclusively inhabited by women, the female counterpart of the word ‘caliph’ would have been used, as Calafia. Perhaps California would mean “female caliph”. Another theory would suggest that the Arabic word khalifa would have been the origin, which meant “successor”, or “leader”. In painting the island in the novel under a rather strong and positive light, words carrying connotations with something strong, wise, or powerful would have been used, and that these words were rather likely sources from with California was derived in the novel.

However, the 1920s saw a new idea being proposed, that the author de Montalvo would have heard of the 11th-century Old French epic called Chanson de Roland. This was where a word strangely similar to California was mentioned — Califerne. Where this Califerne is was not indicated, although it was mentioned after a reference to Africa. After all, America was generally unheard of in Europe during that era (apart from some Norsemen who made it to what is today Newfoundland and other parts of Canada). While some dismissed it as “being too far of a stretch”, Dora Beale Polk suggested, in a 1995 book, that Califerne could be a corruption of the Persian word for “Mountain of Paradise” or Kar-i-farn, bringing the 11th-century mention of Califerne a plausible location and context. However, a similar proposition also suggests that Califerne refers to the ‘caliph’. The exact etymology thus remains cloudy, since both theories would fit in lines 2920-2924 of the Chanson de Roland, which according to Charles Scott Moncrieff in 1919, translates to:

“Dead is my nephew, who conquered so much for me!
Against me will rebel the Saxons,
Hungarians, Bulgars, and many hostile men,
Romans, Apulians, and all those of Palermo,
And those of Africa, and those of Califerne;” –Song of Roland, Verse CCIX {lines 2920-2924), 11th century

The locations and people groups mentioned in these lines can be found in Asia, Europe, and Africa, the three continents known to most Europeans at the time. This would also include Persia (where Persian is spoken), and the Islamic world, which spanned from parts of Spain to parts of Asia during the 11th century. Hence, either proposition of the origin of Califerne would have made sense in this epic.

According to The California Frontier Project, Califerne would have pointed to a more precise place — the Barbary Coast in what is today Algeria. Here, Califerne would have been split into the words Kal-Ifrene, a fortified city founded by the Hammadid dynasty, ruled by the Berber peoples. The establishment of the Hammadid dynasty, and the founding of the fortified city of Kal-Ifrene, was determined to be in the early 11th century, before the Chanson de Roland was written. So could California’s name be ultimately derived from this very place in Algeria?

But this is all assuming that the maps depicted California as a singular word. If California (the actual place) in the 16th century was better known as two separate words, like in Vingboons’ 1650 Cali Fornia map, there would be further theories as to where this name could have come from. One of these takes reference to Latin, which gave the words Calida Fornax as the most plausible words that could give rise to Cali Fornia. Evolving to Calit Fornay in Old Spanish, these words translated to “lime oven”, likely depicting California as a hot place resembling that of the interior of a lime oven.

However, this would mean that accessing and exploring California would have to precede giving California its name. As one might think, how might a 16th-century explorer know how a place feels like before they even get there? Explorers to California like Francisco de Ulloa have described it as “high and bare, of wretched aspect without any verdure”, showing the relatively arid climate California is known to have that is quite inhospitable to most plants. But mentions of California preceded European explorers landing on California.

The other known theory that supported the split of California as Cali Fornia was that this word actually came from an indigenous American language. This phrase, kali forno, translated as “high mountains”, likely referring to the various mountain ranges in Baja California like Sierra de Juárez. But more questions would appear, what is this indigenous language, and how would it then be possible if California had already appeared in Las sergas de Esplandián even before Spanish explorers spoke with the indigenous peoples of that region?

For now, the most convincing theory would seem to be Las sergas de Esplandián, or at least that is what most historians would say. Diving in further, one would find origins of more Persian or Berber origins. But with other theories put forth, there could be another etymology which could actually be true. But what do you think? Which argument is the most plausible? Let us know in the comments!