Idaho
wiktionary
Origin uncertain; possibly from Plains Apache ídaahȩ́́(“Comanche”), though the Oxford English Dictionary states that the development of the state’s name from that word remains undocumented. The name Idaho was said to have been considered around 1860 for what was eventually called the Colorado Territory (now the state of Colorado) in 1861, and in 1863 was given to Idaho County (now part of Idaho); [1] the county was named after a steamship launched on the Columbia River in 1860.
The eccentric political lobbyistGeorge Maurice Willing, Jr. ( c. 1829 – 1874) claimed to have coined the name after a girl named Ida, though saying it was a Shoshoni term meaning “gem of the mountains” (no such term exists), [2] but evidence suggests that there was use of the name in Colorado pre-dating Willing’s arrival in the West in 1859. [1]
The common noun (“type of potato”) is derived from the name of the state. [1]
etymonline
Idaho
1861 as a place name, originally applied by U.S. Congress to a proposed territorial division centered in what is now eastern Colorado; said at the time to mean "Gem of the Mountains" but probably rather from Kiowa-Apache (Athabaskan) idaahe "enemy," a name applied by them to the Comanches. Modern Idaho was organized 1861 as a county in Washington Territory; in 1863 became a territory in its own right and it was admitted as a state in 1890.
