What does California mean? how did california get the name?

Question

i want to know where the states name orginated

Answer 1

A whales v****a

Answer 2

California was a mythical island in Spanish folklore.  When the Spaniards came across what is now California they thought it was an island due to the San Francisco bay and connecting rivers (the bay was quite larger than it is now).  They named the land after the fabled island.  In early maps California was even pictured as an island before they realized it was part of the mainland.

Answer 3

Several origins have been suggested for the word "California," including Spanish, Latin, South Asian and Aboriginal American origins. All of these are disputed.

California originally referred to the entire region composed of the Mexican peninsula now known as Baja California and land in the current U.S. states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Wyoming, which was eventually distinguished as Alta California.

Know that on the right hand from the Indies exists an island called California very close to Earthly Paradise; and it was populated by black women, without any man existing there, because they lived in the way of the Amazons. They had beautiful and robust bodies, and were brave and very strong. Their island was the strongest of the World, with its cliffs and rocky shores. Their weapons were golden and so were the harnesses of the wild beasts that they were accustomed to domesticate and ride, because there was no other metal in the island than gold.

– Las Sergas de Esplandián, (novela de caballería)

by García Ordóñez de Montalvo.

Published in Seville in 1510.

Since then, that unknown Amazon's Island came to be known as California.

Some scholars speculate the Song of Roland, an 11th century Old French epic poem, may have served as the inspiration for the name California. It refers to the defeat suffered August 15, 778, in the retreat of Charlemagne's army at the hands of the Muslim army in Battle of Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees.

Some suggest that the word California may signify that a place is "hot as an oven" (cali > hot, fornia > oven). It may be derived from caliente fornalia, Spanish for hot furnace, or it may come from calida fornax, Latin for hot furnace.[5]

Another possible source may be kali forno, an indigenous phrase meaning "high mountains".[6] There is no agreement among scholars.

So, as you can see, there are many theories, suggesting that no one really knows.