States by Number of Letters
Can you name all 50 states? The states of the United States are often named after the native tribes that lived in the area before colonization, a feature of the land, or the kings and queens of the empires who sent explorers to colonize the land. Of the 50 U.S. states, three have exactly five letters in their names. These states are:
- Idaho
- Maine
- Texas
Idaho was admitted to the union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state. Mining lobbyist George Willing fraudulently won an election as a delegate from the territory of modern-day Colorado. He wanted to call the territory “Idaho” and presented the name to the Senate in 1860. The name was presented as a Native American word meaning, “gem of the mountains;” however, lawmakers discovered the name was fake before ratifying it. The territory became Colorado, but the name “Idaho” stuck and was given to the territory that broke off from the Washington territory a few years later.
The origin of Maine’s name is relatively unclear. There are a few theories that could have contributed to the state’s name, the first of which is that there was a small village on the coast of England named Maine. The second is that Sir Gorge, the British man given a charter for the land in 1622, and his family came from a village that neighbored “Broadmayne.” The third, prevailing theory is that “Maine” comes from a practical nautical term: “the main” or “Main Land,” “Meyne” or “Mainland.” This distinguishes the bulk of the states from the numerous islands around it. This third theory is the most common today.
The word “Texas” was widely used among the Indians of East Texas before the arrival of the Spanish. The Spanish interpreted the word to mean “friends” or “allies.” Spanish explorers Alonso De León and Damian Massanet arrived in 1689 to, what they were told from previous Spanish expeditions, “the Kingdom of Texas.” Massanet reported meeting natives who called themselves “thecas.” A Spanish missionary in the expedition has to correct these reports, asserting that the native groups were not a kingdom and that the name of the groups of the tribes was not Texas. Texas became the 28th U.S. state on December 29, 1845.
