How New Jersey Got Its Name From Sir George Carteret's Island

In 1664, a grant from the Duke of York said the land between the Hudson and the Delaware would “hereafter” be called “Nova-Cesaria or New-Jersey.” The Jersey in that name is the island of Jersey, and one of the two new owners, Sir George Carteret, had been its governor.

The grant

Samuel Smith wrote a history of the colony, printed in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1765 as The History of the Colony of Nova-Caesaria, or New-Jersey. He copied out the key part of the deal. The Duke of York, he says, by “deeds of lease and release” dated “the 23d, and 24th days of June, 1664,” handed the land over to two men: John, Lord Berkeley, and “sir George Carteret, of Saltrum, in the county of Devon.” Both sat on the king’s privy council.

The grant describes the land. It lies west of Long Island and Manhattan, with the sea and the Hudson River on the east and the Delaware on the west, and runs south to Cape May. Then it gives the name. The tract “is hereafter to be called Nova-Cesaria or New-Jersey.”

Smith never explains the Latin half, Nova-Cesaria, so you won’t get an answer on that one here. What he does tell you is what people called it a century later: the land “now called New-Jersey.”

Why Jersey?

Smith answers in an earlier chapter. The province, he writes, “was probably so denominated, in compliment to sir George Carteret, one of the proprietors, and a Jersey man.”

A footnote on the grant page adds the backstory. Carteret had been governor of Jersey, it says, and “held it for K. Charles ii in the troubles of 1649.” That means he kept the island on the king’s side when things got rough. Fifteen years later, a grant from that king’s brother put the island’s name on a big piece of America.

Henry Gannett’s 1905 list of U.S. place names tells it more directly. New Jersey was “originally a grant to Sir George Carteret, who named it for his home on the Isle of Jersey, off the coast of England.” Notice the small gap between the two books. Smith says “probably.” Gannett says it flat out, and he credits Carteret himself with the naming.

Albania, the name Nicolls tried

There’s a funny wrinkle on the New York side. John Romeyn Brodhead, in his 1853 History of the State of New York, says that after the English took New Netherland from the Dutch that same year, Governor Richard Nicolls gave “to the region west of the Hudson the name of ‘Albania.’” He did it because he was “ignorant of James’ grant of New Jersey to Berkeley and Carteret.” James was the Duke of York.

So in 1664, the same land ended up with two English names. Brodhead says James was “Duke of York and Albany,” so Albania honored his other title. New Jersey honored Carteret’s island. You already know which one won.

Sources & further reading

• Samuel Smith, The History of the Colony of Nova-Caesaria, or New-Jersey (Burlington, 1765; reprint, Trenton, 1877), pp. 34–35, 60. The land “now called New-Jersey, in virtue of one of those grants” (p. 34) “was probably so denominated, in compliment to sir George Carteret, one of the proprietors, and a Jersey man” (p. 35). The Duke of York’s “deeds of lease and release, bearing date the 23d, and 24th days of June, 1664,” to “John lord Berkely, baron of Stratton, one of the kings privy council; and sir George Carteret, of Saltrum, in the county of Devon, knight, and one of the privy council”; the bounds of the tract; “which said tract of land is hereafter to be called Nova-Cesaria or New-Jersey”; note: “Sir George Carteret was governor of Jersey, and held it for K. Charles ii in the troubles of 1649” (p. 60).
• John Romeyn Brodhead, History of the State of New York, vol. 1 (New York, 1853), pp. 735, 744–745. “The king’s brother, James, Duke of York”; the patent to “the Duke of York and Albany” (p. 735). Fort Orange renamed “Fort Albany,” “after the second title of the Duke of York” (p. 744). “Ignorant of James’ grant of New Jersey to Berkeley and Carteret, Nicolls gave to the region west of the Hudson the name of ‘Albania,’ and to Long Island that of ‘Yorkshire,’ so as ‘to comprehend all the titles’ of the Duke of York” (p. 745).
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 223. “New Jersey; State of the Union; originally a grant to Sir George Carteret, who named it for his home on the Isle of Jersey, off the coast of England.”
• U.S. Census Bureau, state codes (2020). Lists New Jersey’s permanent federal place-name record number (GNIS 1779795).