It was during the period when this novel was at the height of its popularity that Cortés wrote to the King of Spain concerning information he had of “an island of Amazons, or women only, abounding in pearls and gold, lying ten days journey from Colima.” After having sent one expedition to explore the unknown waters in that direction, in 1535 or thereabout, an expedition that ended in disaster, he went himself and planted a colony at a point, probably La Paz, on the coast of Lower California. In his diary of this expedition, Bernal Díaz speaks of California as a “bay,” and it is probable that the name was first applied to some definite point on the coast, afterward becoming the designation of the whole region. The name also occurs in Preciado’s diary of Ulloa’s voyage down the coast in 1539, making it reasonable to suppose that it was adopted in the period between 1535 and 1539, whether by Cortés or some other person can not be ascertained.
Bancroft expresses the opinion that the followers of Cortés may have used the name in derision, to express their disappointment in finding a desert, barren land in lieu of the rich country of their expectations, but it seems far more in keeping with the sanguine nature of the Spaniards that their imaginations should lead them to draw a parallel between the rich island of the novel, with its treasures of gold and silver, and the new land, of whose wealth in pearls and precious metals some positive proof, as well as many exaggerated tales, had reached them.
An argument that seems to clinch the matter of the origin of the name is the extreme improbability that two different persons, on opposite sides of the world, should have invented exactly the same word, at about the same period, especially such an unusual one as California.
As for the etymology of the word itself, it is as yet an unsolved problem. The suggestion that it is compounded of the Greek root kali (beautiful), and the Latin fornix (vaulted arch), thus making its definition “beautiful sky,” may be the true explanation, but even if that be so, Cortés or his followers took it at second hand from Montalvo and were not its original inventors.
Professor George Davidson, in a monograph on the Origin and the Meaning of the Name California, states that incidental mention had been made as early as 1849 of the name as occurring in Montalvo’s novel by George Ticknor, in his History of Spanish Literature, but Mr. Ticknor refers to it simply as literature, without any thought of connecting it with the name of the state. This connection was undoubtedly first thought of by Mr. Hale and was discussed in his paper read before the Historical Society of Massachusetts in 1862; therefore the honor of the discovery of the origin of the state’s name must in justice be awarded to him. Professor Davidson, in an elaborate discussion of the possible etymology of the word, expresses the opinion that it may be a combination of two Greek words, kallos (beauty), and ornis (bird), in reference to the following passage in the book: “In this island are many griffins, which can be found in no other part of the world.” Its etymology, however, is a matter for further investigation. The one fact that seems certain is its origin in the name of the fabulous island of the novel.
It may well suffice for the fortunate heritors of the splendid principality now known as California that this charming name became affixed to it permanently, rather than the less “tuneful” one of New Albion, which Sir Francis Drake applied to it, and under which cognomen it appears on some English maps of the date.
