The Story of How Canada Got Its Name

The Story of How Canada Got Its Name The name Canada comes from kanata, the Iroquois-Huron word for village or settlement. The Iroquois  used the word to describe the village of Stadacona, present-day Quebec City. During his second voyage to New France  in 1535, French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed up the Saint Lawrence River for the first time. The Iroquois pointed him in the direction of kanata, the village at Stadacona, which Cartier misinterpreted as a reference to  both the village of Stadacona and the wider area subject to Donnacona, the Stadacona Iroquois chief. During Cartiers 1535 trip, the French established along the Saint Lawrence the colony of Canada, the first colony in what the French called New France. Use of Canada gained prominence from there.   The Name Canada Takes Hold (1535 to the 1700s) By 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this small region along the  Saint Lawrence River  as Canada. By 1547, maps were showing the name Canada as everything north of the St. Lawrence River. Cartier referred to the St. Lawrence River as la rivià ¨re du Canada  (the river of Canada),  and the name began to take hold. Even though the French called the region New France, by 1616 the entire area along the great river of Canada and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence was still called Canada. As the country expanded to the west and the south in the 1700s, Canada was the unofficial name of an area spanning the American Midwest, extending as far south as what is now the state of Louisiana. After the British conquered New France in 1763, the colony  was renamed  the Province of Quebec. Then, as British loyalists headed north during and after the American Revolutionary War, Quebec was divided into two parts. Canada Becomes Official In 1791, the Constitutional Act, also called the Canada Act, divided the Province of Quebec into the colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. This marked the first official use of the name Canada. In 1841, the two Quebecs  were united again, this time as the Province of Canada. On July 1, 1867, Canada  was adopted as the legal name for the new country of Canada upon its confederation. On that date, the Confederation Convention formally combined the Province of Canada, which included Quebec and Ontario, with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as one Dominion under the name of Canada. This produced the physical configuration of modern Canada, which is today the second largest country in the world by area (after Russia).  July 1 is still celebrated as Canada Day. Other Names Considered for Canada Canada wasnt the only name considered for the new dominion, although it was ultimately chosen by unanimous vote at the Confederation Convention.   Several other names were suggested for the northern half of the North American continent leading up to confederation, some of which were later repurposed elsewhere in the country. The list included Anglia (a medieval Latin name for England), Albertsland, Albionora, Borealia, Britannia, Cabotia, Colonia, and Efisga, an acronym for the first letters of the countries  England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, with the A for Aboriginal. Other names floated for consideration were Hochelaga, Laurentia (a geological name for part of North America), Norland, Superior, Transatlantia, Victorialand and Tuponia, an acrostic for The United Provinces of North America. This is how the Canadian government remembers the name debate on ​Canada.ca: The debate was placed in perspective by Thomas D’Arcy McGee, who declared on February 9, 1865: â€Å"I read in one newspaper not less than a dozen attempts to derive a new name. One individual chooses Tuponia and another Hochelaga as a suitable name for the new nationality. Now I ask any honourable member of this House how he would feel if he woke up some fine morning and found himself instead of a Canadian, a Tuponian or a Hochelagander.† Fortunately for posterity, McGee’s wit and reasoning–along with common sense–prevailed... The Dominion of Canada Dominion became part of the name instead of kingdom as a clear reference that Canada was under British rule but still its own separate entity. After World War II, as Canada became more autonomous, the full name Dominion of Canada was used less and less. The countrys name was officially changed to Canada in  1982  when the Canada Act was passed, and its been known by that name ever since. The Fully Independent Canada Canada did not become fully independent from Britain until 1982 when  its constitution was patriated under the Constitution Act of 1982, or the Canada Act, The act essentially transferred the countrys highest law, the British North America Act, from the authority of the British Parliament- a connection from the colonial past- to  Canadas  federal and provincial legislatures. The document contains the  original statute that established the  Canadian Confederation  in 1867 (the British  North America  Act),  amendments  that the British Parliament made to it over the years, and Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the result of fierce negotiations between the federal and provincial governments that set down basic rights ranging from freedom of religion to linguistic and educational rights based on the test of numbers. Through it all, the name Canada has remained.