Where Does the Name “Maine” Come From? | Post 5 | Maine

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Across the USA

4 min readMar 2, 2015

Today we stepped onto the sixth-largest island in the contiguous U.S.: Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park. It’s visible from the mainland here at the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound.

To get here from Harrington we eschewed coastal U.S. Route 1 for a bit and took only-slightly-less-coastal routes like Willey District Rd. and Mud Creek Rd. Till now Street View has not allowed us many street options as we head west from the far east corner of Maine. But for this stretch we had choices, and straying from Route 1 brought us both glum grey and sunny blue skies, mainly depending on whether our virtual Street View travels “occurred” during autumn or summer, 2007 or 2011.

Occasionally, low October light and golden leaves warmed a small town’s general store, or made a Halloween yard display somewhat less freaky.

Lobster traps were to be had at The Blacksheep Trading Co., and there was a chainsaw art show in Hancock at 7pm.

Arriving at the Trenton Bridge lobster spot in midsummer with water and green all around and Acadia in the distance did beg a question: What is so “desert” about Mount Desert Island? The answer is fathomable, but requires French. In the early 17th century, explorer Samuel de Champlain — founder of Quebec City and self-namer of the large Vermont-New York lake — viewed the island’s mountains while staking out the French colony of Acadia and found them bare, or déserts. He called the island île des Monts Déserts. Wikipedia reports that the French name could also translate as “isle of the lonely mountains,” which, while possibly in concert with the désert/bare language, our virtual guidebook says is explained by the island’s mountain peaks surfacing into view for the approaching sailor before any other bit of land.

French may also come into play for a second, tougher etymology question: Where does the name “Maine” come from? Some guesses — including that of a 2001 state legislature resolution establishing Franco-American Day — turn to the French historical province of Maine (around present-day Le Mans) and credit the popularity of Henrietta Maria, who was queen to King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland (till his 1649 beheading) and thought to be the owner or landlord or something of Maine, France. It turns out, however, that Henrietta Maria, though French, had nothing to do with either Maine, Acadia, or Maine, France.

So Maine remains one of only six states — and one of only two east of Idaho — whose etymology is unsettled. It is pretty clear that “Maine” is identified as a province (we’re talking about a North American, English colony now) in a 1622 Council of New England land grant charter to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. Therefore, with the French theory in tatters, some have pointed to England and found old towns called Maine and another called Broadmayne, which was shortened at times to Maine and Meine… and which was really close to Sir Gorges’s hometown.

And yet, perhaps frustrated with the indeterminate colonial explanations, the Maine State Library describes as “prevailing” a third theory. It brings us back to Mount Desert and Maine’s 3,000+ other coastal islands: “Maine” simply derives from the nautical term “mainland”.