How Florida Got Its Name: Easter, and a Coast Full of Trees

Florida got its name in 1513 from Juan Ponce de León, who reached the coast during the Easter season, which Spaniards called Pascua Florida, and liked the look of its fresh, green woods. That’s two reasons for one name, and the Spanish account gives both. He also thought he’d found an island.

What the Spanish record says

The fullest early account comes from Antonio de Herrera, the official historian of Spain’s American colonies, in a history first published in 1601. He tells the voyage day by day. Ponce de León’s three ships left Puerto Rico on March 3, 1513, and worked their way north through the Bahamas, which the Spanish called the Lucayos. On Sunday, March 27, which Herrera notes was Easter Sunday, “commonly called” the Easter of flowers, they saw an island but didn’t stop.

On April 2, they came to a coast at 30 degrees and 8 minutes north latitude. Here’s Herrera’s explanation of the name, in our translation:

“And thinking this land was an island, they called it la Florida, because it had a very lovely view of many fresh groves of trees, and it was flat and even; and because they also discovered it in the time of Pascua Florida, Juan Ponce wanted the name to fit both reasons.”

Then he went ashore “to get information and take possession,” Herrera writes.

Flowers, or Easter?

In Spanish, florida means “flowery” or “in bloom,” and Pascua Florida is a traditional name for the Easter season. So the name worked as a pun from the start: a land in bloom, found at the Easter of flowers.

So which reason mattered more? The U.S. Geological Survey’s 1905 place-name book said the holiday “is generally considered to have more weight.” It also said Pascua Florida “corresponds to Palm Sunday,” which doesn’t match Herrera, who ties it to Easter Sunday itself. Herrera doesn’t rank the two reasons. He says Ponce de León wanted the name to cover both.

From a “flowery” island to a state

The island turned out to be a peninsula, and the name stuck to it. According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s record for the state, Florida went on to name the Spanish colony and then a U.S. territory in 1822. It became a state on March 3, 1845.

Sources & further reading

• Antonio de Herrera, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos, Década I, book IX, chapter X (1601; we read the 1726 Madrid edition). The day-by-day account of the 1513 voyage: Easter Sunday on March 27, the coast at 30° 8’ on April 2, the belief that it was an island, and the two reasons for the name. The translation above is ours. Herrera wrote almost 90 years after the voyage. His chapter title promises to explain “why he called it” Florida.
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 127. Gives both reasons and says the second, the holiday, “is generally considered to have more weight.” Links Pascua Florida to Palm Sunday.
• GNIS feature 294478, Florida (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record’s history note summarizes “an early Spanish historian” on the two reasons and gives the 1822 territory and statehood on March 3, 1845.
• U.S. Census Bureau, state codes (2020). Lists Florida’s permanent federal place-name record number (GNIS 294478).