From California to the Insula Novum Eboracum

I have known since college that "Vermont" is "Mons Viridis" in Latin, because I'm so damned old that they still used Latin at my college - Middlebury - in their diplomas.

And thanks to the lockdown, when we have little outside the house to distract us, and can spend our time googling all manner of trivia, I have been digging into how Cicero and Virgil might pronounce the other forty-nine states of the Civitates Foederatae Americae (USA to you).

Fortunately, there is a Latin version of Wikipedia (Vicipaedia, in Latin) where you can look this kind of thing up. 

A great many states have names that work "as is" in Latin.  There's Georgia with its capital at Atlanta. And there's Indiana, where even its capital, Indianapolis, works as is, provided, of course, you allow room for Greek loan words like -polis.  And there's California, for example, with its capital, Sacramentum, requiring the bare minimum of Latinization. And since we're on the topic of polis, there are also these states/state capital combinations: Terra Mariae (Land of Mary) - Annapolis; Virginia Occidentalis - Carolopolis (Charlestown); North and South Dakota (Dacota Meridiana and Dacota Septentrionalis) and their capitals Pierre and Bismarck, respectively: Petropolis and Bismarcopolis. Iowa and Des Moines (Iova and Monachopolis) take a bit of extra work, but they make sense once you press your French into service. And there's Montana - Helenopolis. And Ohium and Colombopolis. And last, but not least, Texia and Austinopolis.

Minnesota, with its capital at Sanctus Paulus, is an easy one, as is Novum Mexicum and Sancta Fides.  The city of Campifons is likely to throw you until you learn it's the capital of Illinoesia. And the state of Nova Caesarea may also challenge you until you learn its capital is Trentonia.

Pennsylvania and Harrisburgum and Rhodensis Insula and Providentia are no challenge. Neither is Uta and Urbs Lacus Salsi. If you happen to know that Ludwig is the German version of Louis, then you're ready for Ludoviciana and its capital at "Red Stick" (Rubribaculum). 

I won't go through all fifty states, but I do need to give special attention to my neighboring state (speaking now as a Vermonter) of New Hampshire.

That one is a real muddle. The reason is the original Latin for Hampshire is a muddle. "Hampshire" (with apologies to my British friends for explaining to my American and other non-Brit friends who may not know) is today a county, and not a town, in Britain, as the suffix "shire" indicates. But before the Normans invaded in 1066 and renamed the Anglo-Saxon "scir"s as comptés (counties in Anglo-Norman), "Hamm" the settlement in the bend of a river carried the name of Hamwic - "wic" being the word for "trading center." But for reasons I have been unable to ascertain, for some reason it also carried the name of "Hantune," which evidently evolved into Hantonia, the current name of the county in Latin, if the Great Seal of New Hampshire is any indication. It reads Sigillum Reipublicae neo hantoniensis."

I say "muddle" because the Vicipaedia page which carries a map of the United States calls New Hampshire "Nova Hantonia" on its list of states below the map, along with their capitals (Nova Hantonia's is Concordia), but "Nova Hantescira" on the map itself.  Which has got to be some sort of historical bastardization, since the Romans left before the Anglo-Saxons arrived.

A quick phone call to Bishop Peter Anthony Libasci at (603) 669-3100 might clear this up. He's the Archbishop of the Diocese of Manchester, which serves the entire catholic population of New Hampshire, and as far as I know the Roman Catholic Church is the only organization that still uses Latin with any frequency in their official dealings. He may know.

In case you wondered, this tangent is only one of many I followed after learning a great deal of information about the Saxon Kingdom of Wessex, the capital of which is Winchester, where Alfred the Great lived. It is located in what is now the county/shire of Hampshire. You will remember him as the first Saxon king to attempt to put his dream of a united England into effect.

I'm still waiting impatiently for Season Five, when the fictional version of Uhtred, if all goes as expected, regains his home in Bebbanburg, in Northumbria, and Alfred's grandson Aethelstan becomes the first actual king of a united Saxon and Viking England. In the meantime, if you think my straining over why Mons Viridis (Vermont, you remember)'s capital, Montpelier, comes out Mons Pessulanus is too trivial to fuss over (not a mystery: Mons Pessulanus was the ancient name of the city of Montpellier (with two l's) in France), consider what's going on down in Netflix land where they're trying to figure out how to make Alexander Dreymon, who plays Uhtret, look like a sixty-year-old man, all the while keeping his muscles rippling as he beheads his Viking foes in battle and slashes them in half. No mean feat.

I wonder how you say New Hampshire in Old Norse.

Nyi Hampshire, I suppose.