15 February 2022
Detail of the c.1450 Fra Mauro map of the world showing the country of Georgia
Georgia is both the name of a country in the Caucasus and of a US state, but the two names have, unsurprisingly, very different origins.
The country of Georgia, once part of the Soviet Union, is a place name of uncertain meaning that can be traced back to the ninth century Arabic Jurzan. The Arabic word may be borrowed from the Persian place name Gurj, although that name isn’t attested until later. The name passed into Latin, and thence into French, where it was borrowed into English. The Georgian name is Sakartvelo (land of the Kartvellians). The Greeks called it Colchis and the Romans Iberia—not to be confused with the Iberia that is Spain and Portugal—after the Kingdom of Iberia (c.302 BCE–580 CE). The country is often associated with St. George, although that association is entirely mythical.
The name appears in English by the early fifteenth century, when it appears in the Book of John Mandeville, a fictional account of the travels of an English knight:
And ther beth other men that beth called Georgenes, which Seynt George converted, and they doth more worship to seyntes of Hevene than other men doth.
The US state, on the other hand, is named after the English King George II.
At the time of contact with Europeans, what is now the state of Georgia was inhabited by a number of Indigenous peoples. In the north were the Cherokee; in the central region the Muskogee (Creek), Hitchiti, Oconee, and Miccosukee peoples; the Guale and Yamasee along the Atlantic coast; and the Apalachee and Timucua in the south. Most of the Indigenous people were driven off their land and out of the state, although some remain to this day. There are no federally recognized tribes in Georgia today, but the state recognizes the Cherokee Indians of Georgia, the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, and the Lower Muscogee Creek Tribe. These peoples, of course, had a variety of names for the land they lived on.
James Oglethorpe obtained a charter in 1732, to establish a colony in what was at the time part of the colony of Carolina. Oglethorpe wanted to establish the colony as an alternative to debtor’s prison for the destitute of England. But given diseases such as yellow fever and wars with the Indians and the Spanish, it would turn out to be not much of an alternative.
Oglethorpe’s charter reads, in part:
All which lands, countries, territories and premises, hereby granted or mentioned, and intended to be granted, we do by these presents, make, erect and create one independent and separate province, by the name of Georgia, by which name we will, the same henceforth be called.
Georgia became a royal, as opposed to a proprietary, colony in 1752. In 1788 it became the fourth state to ratify the US Constitution.
Sources:
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
Kohanski, Tamarah and C. David Benson, eds. The Book of John Mandeville. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007. British Library MS Royal 17 C.xxxviii.
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. Georgienes, n.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2012, s.v Georgian, n.1 and adj.1, Georgian, n.2 and adj. 2.
Thorpe, Francis Newton, ed. “Charter of Georgia—1732.” The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, vol. 2 of 6. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909. 771. HathiTrust Digital Library.
Image credit: Fra Mauro, c.1450. Public domain image.