Know Your Trivia for Week of 8/3/26

Most state names have generally come from Native American languages, European places and words, royalty and famous people, or geographic features. Not Idaho! Idaho is the oddball. Unlike most state names, its name appears to have been invented rather than borrowed from established language or place.

“Idaho” was made up by as sketchy congressional delegate who tried to pass it off as a Native American word!

In 1860, the Western territory of that would become Colorado was soon to become a state and needed a name. Congress wanted the state to have a Native American name and someone suggested Idaho, a name allegedly coined by congressional delegate George M. Willing, who claimed it was a Native American word that meant “Gem of the Mountains.” It wasn’t and it didn’t. He totally made it up.

Congress approved “Idaho” as the name for Colorado at first, but then took it back after they found out it wasn’t actually a Native American name. In the meantime, someone had named a steamboat in the Pacific Northwest “Idaho,” and then some mines got named after the steamboat, and after a few years and several “named after” iterations, people forgot that Idaho was a fake, made-up word, and Congress gave the state its name.

And now, Idaho is not only a state but the last name of a fan-favorite character in one of the best loved sci-fi stories of all time that takes place 10,000 years into the future (Dune). A conman’s word forever immortalized!