Does the name California have a meaning or is it just a bunch of syllables someone found attractive? My knowledge of Spanish leads me to believe that it could possible mean something like “hot oven”, but that is a)too funny to be correct and b)too funny for me not to have heard it yet.
IMS the name California referred to a mythical island of beauty and sweet repose. Kinda’ like Elysian Fields. It is Spanish in origin.
It has been supposed that California derives from Spanish “caliente forne,” hot oven. But this is garbage. It comes from a 16th century Spanish novel entitled “Las Sergas de Esplandian” by a Spaniard named Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo. The story is set in a fictitious country named California where an amazon-like people lives under the rule of a queen Calafia.
It’s not entirely clear where the author got the name “California” from; probably he was thinking of the caliphs.
This, this, and this list the origins of the state names. It’s odd that in some cases we really don’t know where the name came from, e.g. Oregon and Rhode Island.
From the Interntet: Read more here:
http://geogdata.csun.edu/geogcourses/Califia.html