Spanish Place Names in the United States The County of Los Angeles recently became embroiled in a debate over a crucifix on its official seal. The American Civil Liberties Union argued that the cross should be removed from the seal because it violated the separation of church and state. According to others, though, the crucifix was more a historical than a religious symbol; Los Angeles County was after all founded on a Spanish mission site. Russian-American journalist Cathy Young, herself an agnostic, described the effort to take the cross off Los Angeles County's seal as a case of secularism gone awry. Why not, she sarcastically suggested, change the name of the County (and city) itself, which comes from the Spanish "el Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles” (the Town of the Queen of the Angels – the “Queen” in question being the Virgin Mary)? Los Angeles is one of numerous places in the United States to bear a Spanish name. Many of these locations also began as missions established by the Spaniards to convert local Indians to Catholicism. In Southwestern California, we find not only Los Angeles but San Diego (St. James); Santa Cruz (Holy Cross); and San Francisco, from St. Francis of Assisi. (The words “Santa,” “San,” and “Santo” signify “saint” if applied to a person and “holy” if to an object or concept). Incidentally, San Diego's baseball team, the Padres, means “the Fathers” – after the Jesuit priests stationed at Mission San Diego de Alcala. _____________________________________________ Las Vegas translates as “the plains,” while the state in which it is located was named “Nevada” (snowcapped) for its snow-covered mountains. _____________________________________________ In fact, Spanish place names are sprinkled throughout the entire Southwest, from California to the west to Texas to the east and from the Mexican border all the way up to Colorado. The region was explored and colonized by the Spaniards, who ruled it as part of New Spain, a jurisdiction that included Mexico and much of Central America as well as Guam and the Philippines. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, it inherited the territories north of its present border. It lost them, though, in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. Some of these names are religious in origin, like San Antonio (St. Anthony), Texas; Santa Fe (Holy Faith) in New Mexico; and Trinidad (Trinity), Colorado. Others describe natural phenomena. For instance, Mesa Verde, a national park in Arizona, means “green table” in Spanish (“verde” stems from the same Latin word that gave rise to our “verdant”) and was called thus on account of its juniper trees. Las Vegas translates as “the plains,” while the state in which it is located was named “Nevada” (snowcapped) for its snow-covered mountains. Colorado, meaning “red” or “ruddy,” was given this name because of the reddish silt in the Colorado River. Though most of these names are found in the Southwest, they crop up in other parts of the US too. For example, the oldest European settlement in the States is not Plymouth Rock but the city of St. Augustine in Florida, established in 1565. St. Augustine however was originally San Agustin, which was named by Spanish captain Pedro Menendez de Aviles after he sighted the Florida coast on the feast day of Saint Augustine (August 28). Indeed, Florida itself joins the list of American states with a Spanish name. Meaning “full of flowers,” it was designated so by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, who was impressed by the areaís beautiful flora. Of course some Spanish place names in the States, like Seville, Ohio, are not the result of Spanish exploration or influence, any more than the city of Ithaca, New York is a former Greek settlement. Many words of Spanish origin have become part of everyday American vocabulary, like “lasso” from “lazo” (tie) and “cabana” (hut). Nonetheless, the clearest sign of Spainís heritage in the United States lies in the latter country’s geography, as a trip anywhere in the Southwest will show. This website: Copyright © 2004 Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be reproduced without written permission from the publisher or the previous publisher of original republished materials.