What the Heck Does that Mean? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Red stick

In 1698, the French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville led an expedition up the Mississippi River, when he came across a red pole in the ground, which marked the boundary between the hunting grounds of the Houma and Bayagoula tribes. This pole, which was reported as being 30 feet high and covered with fish bones, was referred to in accounts of the expedition as 'Istrouma', believed to be a corruption of the Choctaw phrase 'iti humma', meaning 'red pole'; in French this was rendered as 'le bâton rouge'.

The French began to settle the area in 1721, giving the new settlement the name Baton Rouge. The city was incorporated in 1817, and in 1846 the Louisiana state legislature named it as the new state capital in place of New Orleans.

Answer: Wooded

There are differing accounts of how Boise got its name - one comes from an exploration led by Captain Benjamin Bonneville who, after weeks of trekking, came upon an area overlooking what is now called the Boise River Valley. Overwhelmed at the sight of the forested area, a French-speaking guide exclaimed "les bois, les bois!" ("the woods, the woods!"). An alternative is that the name comes from mountain men who lived in the area; being in a high desert region, the area was an oasis covered in cottonwood trees, which the local fur trappers referred to as 'La rivière boisée', or 'the wooded river'.

The area was originally settled as a defensive fort, Fort Boise, in the 1830s, before being abandoned. During the Civil War, the US government reestablished Fort Boise at the intersection of the Oregon Trail and the Idaho City-Silver City road. Boise was incorporated as a city in 1863, and, following the establishment of the Idaho Territory, was made capital in 1866.

Answer: Harmony

The area now occupied by the city of Concord was first settled in 1659 as Pennacook, after the local native tribe. A plantation was established in the area in 1725, with the establishment of a town beginning at the same time, which was renamed as Rumford in 1735.

The town of Rumford, which was in an area claimed by Massachusetts, eventually came into conflict over its boundaries with the adjacent town of Bow, which was in New Hampshire. This dispute lasted some thirty years before the boundaries of the two towns were settled on.

In an effort to restore peace to the situation, in 1765 Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire signed an order renaming Rumford as Concord, to reflect the new harmony between the two towns. Concord became the state capital in 1808.

Answer: Of the monks

The name Des Moines comes from the original French name of the Des Moines river ('Rivière des Moines') that flows through the city. The origin of the name is disputed, with two explanations given. The first is that the name is derived from 'Moingona', which was the name of an Algonquin clan resident in the region.

In this explanation, 'Moingona' means 'people by the portage', referring to the Des Moines rapids, where the earliest known encounters between the Moingona and European explorers took place.

A different explanation comes from a group of French Trappist monks, who established a settlement at Cahokia in modern-day Illinois. The city of Des Moines was incorporated as Fort Des Moines in 1851, being shortened to its present name and named as the new state capital in 1857.

Answer: Sheltered harbour

There has been a settlement in the area now occupied by the city of Honolulu since the 11th century, with the harbour being a major trading outpost throughout that time. The first European vessel to enter the harbour came in 1794, when the trading ship "Butterworth", commanded by Captain William Brown, arrived.

Although Brown's crew dubbed the location 'Brown's Harbour' after their captain, Brown himself balked at the idea, and instead insisted that it be called 'Fair Haven', given the natural shelter that the harbour provided. 'Fair Haven' was translated into Hawaiian as 'Honolulu', and the name was applied to the area around the harbour.

In 1804, King Kamehameha I, following his conquest of the island of Oahu, moved his court to Honolulu from the island of Hawaii, where it remained until 1812.

In 1845, Kamehameha III named Honolulu as the permanent capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, with the city retaining its status following Hawaii's annexation by the United States in 1898.

Answer: Red people

Oklahoma City takes its name from the State of Oklahoma. Oklahoma itself gets its name from the Choctaw words 'okla' and 'humma', which together translates as 'red people', which was the Choctaw phrase to describe Native American people generally, rather than to specific tribes or groups.

The name 'Oklahoma' was suggested in 1866 by Chief Allen Wright of the Choctaw Nation, who envisioned a state populated entirely by Native Americans. Applied as a de facto name to the new territory, the name became official in 1890.

The area that became Oklahoma City was first settled in 1889, before being incorporated in 1890, taking its name from the territory of which it was part. Oklahoma City rapidly became the territory's largest commercial and population centre, and, in 1907, shortly after Oklahoma was admitted as the 46th state, was made the new state's capital.

Answer: Blessed sacrament

Although the area around Sacramento had been inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples in Northern California, including the Nisenan and the Maidu, in 1808 it was first explored by Europeans, when Gabriel Moraga, a Spanish Army officer, surveyed the region and named the river on which it sits the 'Rio del Santísimo Sacramento' ('River of the Blessed Sacrement').

In 1839, the governor of Alta-California granted the right to colonize the Sacramento river valley to John Augustus Sutter, who established the settlements of Sutter's Fort and New Helvetia. Following the American conquest of California, the area around the riverfront began to be developed, eventually being incorporated as the city of Sacramento in 1850.

Although the California State Legislature first met in the city in 1854, it was only in 1879 that Sacramento was named as California's capital.

Answer: Holy faith

The area now covered by Santa Fe was originally inhabited by the Tewa and Navajo peoples, who referred to it as 'Oghá P'o'oge' ('White shell water place') and 'Yootó' ('Bead Water Place') respectively. In 1610, the first Spanish settlers arrived, naming the region as 'Santa Fe de Nuevo México', a province of New Spain.

As more settlements were established, the colonial governor ordered that the original settlement be renamed as 'La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís' ('The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St Francis of Assisi').

Despite being shortened over time to simply Santa Fe, the full name remains the city's legal name. Santa Fe has been the capital of New Mexico throughout its status as a Spanish province, a Mexican territory, US territory and, since 1912, the 47th state of the Union.

Answer: Old town

'Tallahassee' is a word from the Muskogee language meaning 'old town' (or 'old field'), and is likely to come from the Creek people. They migrated from areas of Georgia and Alabama to the Florida Big Bend and Panhandle regions in the 18th and 19th centuries, following European encroachment on their territories. Upon arriving in the Florida area, they found large areas of cleared land that had been previously occupied by the Apalachee people. Tallahassee was established in 1824, following Florida's incorporation as a US territory three years earlier - the first session of the new territory's Legislative Council took place in 1822 in Pensacola, the old capital of West Florida, which it took the delegates from East Florida 59 days to reach. The following year, the second session was in St Augustine, the capital of East Florida, with the western delegates taking 28 days to get there. So, a halfway point was selected for future sessions, with Tallahassee chosen.

In 1824, Tallahassee was established as the capital of Florida with the third session of the Legislative Council.

Answer: Place we dug potatoes

Topeka is a word from the Kansa-Osage language that means "place where we dug potatoes", or "good place to dig potatoes". The word was first recorded in relation to a place name in 1826, when it was noted as the Kansa name for what is now the Kansas river.

The area that is now Topeka first began to be used as a crossing point of the Kansas river for travellers on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. In the early 1850s, a road from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Riley began running through the little settlement, which led to it rapidly expanding.

The city was established in 1854, with the name Topeka chosen in 1855 because it "was novel, of Indian origin and euphonious of sound." In 1861, when Kansas was admitted to the union as the 34th state, Topeka was named as the new state capital.