Did you know that the island of Guadalcanal, famous for a significant WWII battle, is actually named after a city in Spain? It was discovered in 1568 by Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, who named it after his hometown. The name comes from the Arabic phrase wadi al-kabir, which translates to “big river”. The word wadi can refer to a river, valley, or riverbed, and is derived from the Proto-Semitic root w-d-y, associated with protruding objects. The kabir part comes from the Proto-Semitic root k-b-r, meaning “large”, “old”, or “great”. Literary usage of the name Guadalcanal peaked in 1945, declined rapidly, and has since stabilized according to Google Ngrams.
