Online Etymology Dictionary

Sheraton: severe style of late 18c. English furniture, 1883, from name of cabinetmaker Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806). The family name is from a place in Durham, late Old English Scurufatun (c.1040), probably "farmstead of a man called Skurfa" (an old Scandinavian personal name). The hotel chain dates from 1937 and has no obvious direct connection.
Shiraz (n.): wine made in the district of Shiraz, city in Persia, 1630s. As the name for a red wine made from a type of grape grown in the Rhône valley of France, it is recorded from 1908, from French syrah, the name apparently altered in English on mistaken notion that the grape was brought to Europe from the Middle East by Crusaders. The place name is said to be from Elamite sher "good" + raz "grape."
Chinook: name for a group of related native people in the Columbia River region of Washington and Oregon, from Salishan /činuk/, name of a village site. Name also extended to a type of salmon (1851) and warm spring wind. Chinook jargon was a mishmash of native (Chinook and Nootka), French, and English words; it once was lingua franca in the Pacific Northwest, and it is the earliest attested use of the word (1840).
arugula (n.): edible cruciform plant (Eruca sativa) used originally in the Mediterranean region as a salad; the American English and Australian form of the name is (via Italian immigrants) from a dialectal variant of Italian ruchetta, a diminutive form of ruca-, from Latin eruca, a name of some cabbage-like plant, from PIE *gher(s)-uka-, from root *ghers- "to bristle" (see horror).

In England, the usual name is rocket (see rocket (n.1)), which is from Italian ruchetta via French roquette. It also sometimes is called hedge mustard.
coolie (n.): name given by Europeans to hired laborers in India and China, c. 1600, from Hindi quli "hired servant," probably from kuli, name of an aboriginal tribe or caste in Gujarat. The name was picked up by the Portuguese, who used it in southern India (where by coincidence kuli in Tamil meant "hire") and in China.
Sabrina: fem. proper name, personified as a nymph by Milton in "Comus" (1634), from a Welsh tale of a maiden drowned in the river Severn by her stepmother, a legend found in Geoffrey of Monmouth and Giraldus Cambrensis. The name appears to be the Romanized form of the name of the River Severn (Welsh Hafren, Habren), which is Celtic and of unknown origin; it perhaps means "boundary." Sabrina neckline is from the 1954 film "Sabrina" starring Audrey Hepburn.
Sacagawea: also Sacajawea, name of the Shoshoni woman who accompanied the Lewis & Clark expedition.
She had been a captive among the Hidatsas (a Siouan people), and her Hidatsa name was tsaka'aka wi'a, lit. 'bird woman' (Hartley, 2002). Her Shoshoni name, rendered as Sacajawea and translated 'boat launcher,' may have been a folk-etymological transformation of the Hidatsa term (Shaul, 1972). [Bright]
Her image appeared on U.S. dollar coins from 2000.
Harris: surname, attested from c. 1400 (Harrys), from "Harry," the popular pronunciation of Henry. As a type of tweed (1892), it is from the name of the southern section of the island of Lewis with Harris in the Outer Hebrides; originally it referred to fabric produced by the inhabitants there, later a proprietary name. That place name represents Gaelic na-h-earaidh "that which is higher," in comparison to the lower Lewis. Harrisburg, capital of Pennsylvania, is named for ferryman John Harris (1727-1791), son of the original European settler.
frangipani (n.): common name of a type of flowering shrub from the West Indies, also fdrangipane, 1670s, for a perfume that had its odor, from French frangipane (16c.), said to be from Frangipani, the family name of the Italian inventor.
FRANGIPANI, an illustrious and powerful Roman House, which traces its origin to the 7th c., and attained the summit of its glory in the 11th and 12th centuries. ... The origin of the name Frangipani is attributed to the family's benevolent distribution of bread in time of famine. ["Chambers's Encyclopædia," 1868]
Frangipane as a type of pastry is from 1858.
Coumadin (n.): by 1953, name for human anti-coagulant use of the rat poison warfarin sodium, abstracted from the chemical name, 3-(α-acetonylbenzyl)-4-hydroxycoumarin; earlier known as Dicoumarol, it attained publicity when it was used in 1955 to treat U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower after a heart attack. The coumarin element (1830) is from French coumarine, from coumarou, the native name in Guyana of the tonquin bean, one source of the substance.
Bourbon: line of French kings (who also ruled in Naples and Spain), of whom it was proverbially said, "they learn nothing and forget nothing." The royal family ruled in France 1589-1792 and 1815-1848; its name is from Bourbon l'Archambault, chief town of a lordship in central France, probably from Borvo, name of a local Celtic deity associated with thermal springs, whose name probably is related to Celtic borvo "foam, froth."
Joan: fem. proper name, Middle English Joan, Jone, variants of Jean, Jane, from Medieval Latin Joanna, fem. of Late Latin Joannes (see John). Often 17c.-18c. used as a generic name for a female rustic, or with Darby as the characteristic names of an old, happily married couple (1735). Among U.S. births, a top 10 name for girls born between 1930 and 1937.
Sofia: Bulgarian capital, Roman Serdica, from the Thracian Serdi people who lived thereabouts. Conquered by the Bulgarians 9c. who altered the name by folk-etymology to Sredeti, which in their tongue meant "center, middle." It got its current name 14c. when the Turks conquered it and converted the 6c. church of St. Sophia into a mosque; the name thence extended to the whole city.
Thessaly: district south of Macedonia and east of Epirus, from Greek Thessalia (Attic Thettalia), an Illyrian name of unknown origin. Related: Thessalian. The city of Thessalonika on the Thermaic Gulf was ancient Therme, renamed when rebuilt by the Macedonian king Cassander, son of Antipater, and named in honor of his wife, Thessalonica, half-sister of Alexander the Great, whose name contains the region name and Greek nike "victory." The adjectival form of it is Thessalonian Related: Thessalonians.
Hector: masc. personal name, from Latinized form of Hektor, name of the Trojan hero, oldest son of Priam and Hecuba, in the "Iliad," from Greek hektor, literally "holder, stayer;" an agent noun from ekhein "to have, hold, possess" (see scheme (n.)). As a proper name it is rare in England but used in Scotland to render Gaelic Eachdonn. Heck for short.
Leicester: Middle English, earlier Ligraceaster, Ligera ceaster (early 10c.) "Roman Town of the People Called Ligore," a tribal name, perhaps "dwellers by the River Ligor." For second element, see Chester. The site is the Roman Ratae Coritanorum, fortified tribal capital of the Coritani, whose name is of unknown origin, with a Celtic word for "ramparts." The modern name "is best regarded as a new descriptive term for a deserted site" [Watts, "Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names"].
Latvia: Baltic nation, first independent in 1918, named for its inhabitants, Latvian Latvji, whose ancient name is of unknown origin. In English, the people name was Lett. Parts of the modern state were known previously as Livonia (from Estonian liiv "sand") and Courland (from Curonians, the name of a Lettish people, which is of unknown origin). Related: Latvian.
malkin (n.): also mawkin, "a slattern; woman of the lower classes," late 13c., from fem. proper name Malkyn, a diminutive of Mault "Maud" (see Matilda). Also attested from c. 1200 as the proper name of a female specter. Sense of "untidy woman" led to meaning "mop, bundle of rags on a stick" (used to clean ovens, artillery pieces, etc.), c. 1400.
MALKINTRASH. One in dismal garb. [Grose, "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," London, 1785]
Attested as the name of a cat since 1670s (perhaps earlier as Grimalkin, 16c.); compare Serbo-Croatian mačka "cat," originally a pet-name form of Maria. Also used in Scotland and northern England as the name of a hare (1724).
Russia: 1530s, from Medieval Latin Russi "the people of Russia," from Rus, the native name of the people and the country (source of Arabic Rus, Medieval Greek Rhos), originally the name of a group of Swedish merchant/warriors who established themselves around Kiev 9c. and founded the original Russian principality; perhaps from Ruotsi, the Finnish name for "Sweden," from Old Norse Roþrslandi, "the land of rowing," old name of Roslagen, where the Finns first encountered the Swedes. This is from Old Norse roðr "steering oar," from Proto-Germanic *rothra- "rudder," from PIE *rot-ro-, from root *ere- (1) "to row" (see row (v.)).

Derivation from the IE root for "red," in reference to hair color, is considered less likely. Russian city-states were founded and ruled by Vikings and their descendants. The Russian form of the name, Rossiya, appears to be from Byzantine Greek Rhosia. Russification is from 1842.
Samoyed (n.): Siberian Mongolian people, 1580s, from Russian samoyed (11c.), traditionally literally "self-eaters," i.e. "cannibals" (the first element cognate with same, the second with eat), but this might be Russian folk etymology of a native name:
The common Russian etymology of the name Samoyed, meaning "self-eater," deepened the Russians' already exotic image of far-northerners. The most probable linguistic origin of Samoyed, however, is from the Saami -- saam-edne, "land of the people" [Andrei V. Golovnev and Gail Osherenko, "Siberian Survival: The Nenets and Their Story," Cornell University, 1999]
Which would make the name a variant of Suomi "Finn." The native name is Nenets. As the name of a type of dog (once used as a working dog in the Arctic) it is attested from 1889.
jersey (n.): 1580s as a type of knitted cloth; 1842 as a breed of cattle; both from Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. Its name is said to be a corruption of Latin Caesarea, the Roman name for the island (or another near it), influenced by Old English ey "island;" but it is perhaps rather a Viking name (perhaps meaning "Geirr's island").

The meaning "woolen knitted close-fitting tunic," especially one worn during sporting events, is from 1845. In American English, short for New Jersey from 1758. Related: Jerseyman.
Taj Mahal (n.): mausoleum at Agra, India, built by Shah Jahan for his favorite wife, from Persian, perhaps "the best of buildings," with second element related to Arabic halla "to lodge." But some authorities hold that the name of the mausoleum is a corruption of the name of the woman interred in it, Mumtaz (in Persian, literally "chosen one") Mahal, who died in 1631. Persian taj is literally "crown, diadem, ornamental headdress," but here denoting an object of distinguished excellence. Figurative use of Taj Mahal in English as a name denoting anything surpassing or excellent is attested from 1895.
Geronimo (interj.): cry made in jumping, 1944 among U.S. airborne soldiers, apparently from the story of the Apache leader Geronimo making a daring leap to escape U.S. cavalry pursuers at Medicine Bluffs, Oklahoma (and supposedly shouting his name in defiance as he did). Adopted as battle cry by paratroopers in World War II, who perhaps had seen it in the 1939 Paramount Studios movie "Geronimo." The name is the Italian and Spanish form of Jerome, from Greek Hieronomos, literally "sacred name." One contemporary source also lists Osceola as a jumping cry.
joe (n.): "coffee," by 1941, perhaps late 1930s, of unknown origin. The guess that it is from the name of U.S. coffee merchant Joseph Martinson (c. 1880-1949) is not chronologically impossible, but it wants evidence and seems to have originated in the company's advertisements (1972). Earlier in American English (1772) it was the colloquial name of a Portuguese or Brazilian coin worth about $8, shortened from Johannes in this sense (1758), the Modern Latin form of Portuguese João (see John), name of a king of Portugal whose head and Latin inscription appeared on the coin.
Basque: 1817 (adj.), 1835 (n.), from French, from Spanish vasco (adj.), from vascon (n.), from Latin Vascones (Vasconia was the Roman name for the up-country of the western Pyrenees), said by von Humboldt to originally mean "foresters" but more likely a Latinized version of the people's name for themselves, euskara or eskuara.
This contains a basic element -sk- which is believed to relate to maritime people or sailors, and which is also found in the name of the Etruscans .... [Room, "Placenames of the World," 2006]
Earlier in English was Basquish (1610s, noun and adjective); Baskles (plural noun, late 14c.); Baskon (mid-15c.).
Bayard (n.): generic or mock-heroic name for a horse, mid-14c., from Old French Baiard, name of the bay-colored magic steed given by Charlemagne to Renaud in the legends, from Old French baiart "bay-colored" (see bay (adj.)). Also by early 14c. proverbial as a blind person or thing, for now-unknown reasons. The name later was used attributively of gentlemen of courage and integrity, in this sense from Pierre du Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (1473-1524), French knight celebrated as Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. The surname is perhaps in reference to hair color.
Nicholas: masc. proper name, from French Nicolas, from Latin Nicholaus, Nicolaus, from Greek Nikholaos, literally "victory-people," from nike "victory" (see Nike) + laos "people" (see lay (adj.)). The saint (obit. 326 C.E.) was a bishop of Myra in Lycia, patron of scholars, especially schoolboys. A popular given name in England in Middle Ages, as was the fem. form Nicolaa, corresponding to French Nicole. Colloquial Old Nick "the devil" is attested from 1640s, evidently from the proper name, but for no certain reason.
Matilda: fem. proper name, from French Mathilde, of Germanic origin, literally "mighty in battle;" compare Old High German Mahthilda, from mahti "might, power" + hildi "battle," from Proto-Germanic *hildiz "battle" (see Hilda). The name also was late 19c. Australian slang for "a traveler's bundle or swag," hence the expression waltzing Matilda "to travel on foot" (by 1889).
In my electorate nearly every man you meet who is not "waltzing Matilda" rides a bicycle. ["Parliamentary Debates," Australia, 1907]
The lyrics of the song of that name, sometimes called the unofficial Australian national anthem, are said to date to 1893.
chrome (n.): 1800, "chromium," from French chrome, the name proposed by Fourcroy and Haüy for a new element, from Greek khroma "color" (see chroma); so called because it makes colorful compounds. The name was given to the metallic element now known as chromium (which had been isolated 1798 by French chemist Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin); it continued in commercial use in English for "chrome steel" (steel with 2 percent or so chrome) after the chemical name was changed internationally. As a short form of chromium plating it dates from 1937. Related: Chromic.
Anthony: masc. proper name, from Latin Antonius, name of a Roman gens (with excrescent -h- probably suggested by many Greek loan words beginning anth-, such as anthros "flower," anthropos "man"); St. Anthony (4c.), Egyptian hermit, patron saint of swineherds, to whom one of each litter was usually vowed, hence Anthony for "smallest pig of the litter (1660s; in condensed form tantony pig from 1590s). St. Anthony's Fire (1520s), popular name for erysipelas, is said to be so called from the tradition that those who sought his intercession recovered from that distemper during a fatal epidemic in 1089.
Hungary: c. 1300, from Medieval Latin Hungaria (also source of French Hongrie), probably literally meaning "land of the Huns," who ruled a vast territory from there under Attila in 5c. The people's name for themselves we transliterate as Magyar. Middle English uses the same words for both Attila's people and the Magyars, who appeared in Europe in 9c. and established a kingdom in 1000. From the same source as Medieval Greek Oungroi, German Ungarn, Russian Vengriya, Ukrainian Ugorshchina. The Turkish name for the country, Macaristan, reflects the indigenous name. Related: Hungarian (1550s as a noun, c. 1600 as an adjective).
Podunk: legendary small town, 1846, originally the name of a small group of Indians who lived around the Podunk River in Connecticut; the tribe name is in colonial records from 1656 (as Potunck), from southern New England Algonquian (Mohegan or Massachusetts) Potunk, probably from pautaunke, from pot- "to sink" + locative suffix -unk, thus "a boggy place." Its popularity as the name of a typical (if mythical) U.S. small town dates from a series of witty "Letters from Podunk" which ran in the "Buffalo Daily National Pilot" newspaper beginning Jan. 5, 1846.
Moor (n.): "North African, Berber," late 14c., from Old French More, from Medieval Latin Morus, from Latin Maurus "inhabitant of Mauritania" (northwest Africa, a region now corresponding to northern Algeria and Morocco), from Greek Mauros, perhaps a native name, or else cognate with mauros "black" (but this adjective only appears in late Greek and may as well be from the people's name as the reverse). Being a dark people in relation to Europeans, their name in the Middle Ages was a synonym for "Negro;" later (16c.-17c.) used indiscriminately of Muslims (Persians, Arabs, etc.) but especially those in India.
Mohawk: North American Indian tribe name, Iroquoian, 1630s, Mohowawogs (plural), said to mean "they eat living things" in a southern New England Algonquian tongue, probably a reference to cannibalism. Compare Unami Delaware /muhuwe:yck/ "cannibal monsters." The people's name for themselves is kanye'keha:ka. Meaning "haircut style favored by punk rockers" is c. 1975, from fancied resemblance to hair style of the Indians in old illustrations. The style of cut earlier was called a Mohican (1960). Mohoc, Mohock, variant form of the word, was the name given 1711 to gangs of aristocratic London ruffians.
Afghan: name of the people of Afghanistan, technically only correctly applied to the Durani Afghans; Old Afghan chronicles trace the name to an Afghana, son of Jeremiah, son of Israelite King Saul, from whom they claimed descent, but this is a legend. The name is first attested in Arabic in al-'Utbi's "History of Sultan Mahmud" written c.1030 C.E. and was in use in India from 13c. Attested from 1833 as a type of blanket or wrap (in full, Afghan shawl); 1973 as a style of sheepskin coat; 1877 as a type of carpet; 1895 as a breed of hunting dog.
Fox: name of an Algonquian people (confederated with the Sac after 1760), translating French renards, which itself may be a translation of an Iroquoian term meaning "red fox people." Their name for themselves is /meškwahki:-haki/ "red earths." French renard "fox" is from Reginhard, the name of the fox in old Northern European fables (as in Low German Reinke de Vos, but Chaucer in The Nun's Priest's Tale calls him Daun Russell); it is Germanic and means literally "strong in council, wily."
Iraq: country name, 1920, from an Arabic name attested since 6c. for the region known in Greek as Mesopotamia; often said to be from Arabic `araqa, covering notions such as "perspiring, deeply rooted, well-watered," which may reflect the desert Arabs' impression of the lush river-land. But the name might be from, or influenced by, Sumerian Uruk (Biblical Erech), anciently a prominent city in what is now southern Iraq (from Sumerian uru "city"). Related: Iraqi (attested in English from 1777, in reference to regional Mesopotamian music or dialects).
ariel: 1382, in the Wyclif Bible, a word taken untranslated from the Vulgate, from Greek ariel (Sept.), from Hebrew ariel; in later Bibles, translated as "altar."
(Gesenius would here translate "fire-hearth of God," after Arab. arr; elsewhere in O.T. the same word occurs as a man's name, and appellation of Jerusalem, where it is taken as = "lion of God.") Ariel in T. Heywood and Milton is the name of an angel, in Shakespeare of "an Ayrie spirit"; in Astron. of one of the satellites of Uranus. [OED]
As the name of a species of gazelle found in the Middle East, 1832, from Arabic aryil, variant of ayyil "stag."
Columbia: poetic name for United States of America, earlier for the British colonies there, 1730s, also the nation's female personification, from name of Christopher Columbus (also see Colombia) with Latin "country" ending -ia. A popular name for places and institutions in the U.S. in the post-Revolutionary years, when former tributes to king and crown were out of fashion: such as Columbia University (New York, U.S.) founded in 1754 as King's College; re-named 1784. Also District of Columbia (1791, as Territory of Columbia); "Hail, Columbia" (Joseph Hopkinson, 1798), Barlow's "Columbiad" (1809).
hardscrabble (n.): in popular use from c. 1826 as a U.S. colloquial name for any barren or impoverished place "where a livelihood may be obtained only under great hardship and difficulty" [OED]; from hard (adj.) + noun from scrabble (v.). Noted in 1813 as a place-name in New York state; first recorded in journals of Lewis and Clark (1804) as the name of a prairie. Perhaps the original notion was "vigorous effort made under great stress," though this sense is recorded slightly later (1812). As an adjective by 1845.
Italy: from Latin Italia, from Greek Italia; of unknown origin. Perhaps an alteration of Oscan Viteliu "Italy," but meaning originally only the southwestern point of the peninsula. Traditionally said to be from Vitali, name of a tribe that settled in Calabria, whose name is perhaps somehow connected with Latin vitulus "calf." Or perhaps the country name is directly from vitulus as "land of cattle," or it might be from an Illyrian word, or an ancient or legendary ruler Italus. The modern nation dates from events of 1859-60 and was completed by the addition of Venetia in 1866 and Rome in 1870.
minke (n.): type of small whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), 1939, supposedly from the Norwegian surname Meincke.
The name minke is said to have derived from one of Svend Foyn's crew by the name of Meincke, who mistook a school of these whales for blue whales. Whalers all over the world considered this incident so amusing that they used his name as a household word to describe this species. [J.N. Tønnessen & A.O. Johnsen, "The History of Modern Whaling" (transl. R.I. Christophersen), 1982]
Also known in English as the lesser rorqual and little piked whale.
Libya: ancient name for the northern part of Africa west of Egypt, attested in heiroglyphics from 2000 B.C.E., of unknown origin. In Greek use, sometimes meaning all of Africa. The modern nation acquired the name in 1934, when Italy, which then held it as a colony, revived the name as that of the colony, which became formally independent in 1951. Related: Libyan (adj. and n., both c. 1600), earlier as an adjective Lybic (1540s); as a noun, for the inhabitants and the country, Middle English had Libie. Comb. form Libyo-.
Acheron: 1580s, fabled river of the Lower World in Greek mythology. The name perhaps means "marsh-like" (compare Greek akherousai "marshlike water"); the derivation from Greek akhos "woe" is considered folk etymology.
balsa (n.): South American tree, 1866, apparently from Spanish balsa "float," originally the name of rafts used on the Pacific coast of Latin America (1777). The wood is very light.
crag (n.): early 14c.; as a place-name element attested from c. 1200, probably from a Celtic source akin to Old Irish crec "rock," and carrac "cliff," Welsh craig "rock, stone," Manx creg, Breton krag.
davenport (n.): "large upholstered couch," 1897, apparently named for the manufacturer. Earlier (1853) "a kind of small ornamental writing table." The proper name is attested from 12c., from a place in Cheshire (Old English Devennport).
Cynthia: fem. proper name, also "the Moon," from Latin Cynthia dea "the Cynthian goddess," epithet of Artemis/Diana, said to have been born on Mt. Cynthus on Delos.
Absalom: masc. proper name, King David's son in the Old Testament, often used figuratively for "favorite son," from Hebrew Abhshalom, literally "father is peace," from abh "father" + shalom "peace."
Cambrian (adj.): 1650s, "from or of Wales or the Welsh," from Cambria, variant of Cumbria, Latinized derivation of Cymry, the name of the Welsh for themselves, from Old Celtic Combroges "compatriots." Geological sense (of rocks first studied in Wales and Cumberland) is from 1836.