Word origins: Cape Canaveral

Discovery Lands Safely in California (see link below)

Good news. With all of the concern over flying foam and other problems, it is good to have them safely back. But that got me wondering about where the name "Canaveral" came from. Turns out I am not the one who does not know where the name came from.

From "Dictionary.Com"

Ca·nav·er·al Cape Formerly (1963-1973) Cape Ken·ne·dy

A sandy promontory extending into the Atlantic Ocean from a barrier island on the east-central coast of Florida. It is the site of NASA's Kennedy Manned Space Flight Center, the launching area for U.S. space missions.

From "The History of Cape Canaveral"

The name "Cape Canaveral" is made up of two fairly simple Spanish words. The name "Cape" was simply the designation for a point of land jutting out into the sea. "Canaveral", literally translated "canebrake", might have had a number of different meanings depending upon who actually selected the name.

The Smithsonian Institution included an account of the naming of Cape Canaveral in their 1992 traveling exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus. According to the exhibit, Cape Canaveral, translated as "Place of the Cane Bearers", was named by Spanish Cape explorer Francisco Gordillo after he was shot by an Ais arrow made of cane.

Cape Canaveral has also been roughly translated as "Point of Reeds" or "Point of Canes". While there is no actual sugar cane indigenous to the Cape Canaveral area, there are several forms of plants that resemble sugar cane. These include a type of bamboo reed dubbed "nomal cane" by early U.S. residents of the Cape. This plant very much resembles sugar cane when seen from offshore.