Off the Wall: The Land of Fruits and Nuts
How California Got Its Name from a Mythical Island, a Warrior Queen, and a Book Most People Never Heard Of
How California Got Its Name from a Mythical Island, a Warrior Queen, and a Book Most People Never Heard Of
(Commonplace Fun Facts) - California has a reputation.
Depending on whom you ask, it is either a paradise of sunshine, innovation, avocados, and people who put kale in things that never asked for it, or it is a vast and undeniably weird realm inhabited by movie stars, surfers, people who do yoga with goats, and at least three cults in every subdivision.
In other words, a lot of people already think California sounds less like a normal place and more like a myth someone made up after eating questionable mushrooms.
As it turns out, that is not entirely unfair and appropriately ties in with how California got its name.
The name California appears to have come from an obscure 16th-century Spanish romance about a fantastical island full of gold and ruled by a powerful queen. This is one of those historical facts that sounds like it was invented by a tour guide in a gift shop, yet it is the explanation most historians accept. The state with Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Death Valley, the redwoods, Disneyland, and approximately nineteen separate microclimates decided to begin its naming career as fictional real estate.
Which, frankly,,,