Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: How California Got Its Name

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

California is a pretty cool name. And the story about where it came from is even cooler. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and there's Jerry out there.

And this is short stuff. California, here we come right back where we started from. I love California, as you know. I lived in LA, but I love Northern California. I think Emily and I have designs on maybe even retiring there one day. Maybe there are people, I don't know. I mean, somewhere in wine country would be just lovely. Oh man, that'd be so nice. Now, I saw the soap one time called Santa Barbara and it looks real nice there. Now, Santa Barbara's awesome. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it depends on what happens with Ruby. We've kind of pledged to follow her around. Oh yeah. So I'm going to tell her how great San Francisco is, take her there a lot. So maybe she'll want to

end up in San Francisco and then we can be nearby in Sonoma or something. Yeah, I'm sure she's going to love that. She's really going to grow up to look forward to being really close to her parents for her whole life. We'll see. She's going to end up a Republican in Michigan. Just you watch, mark my words. Yeah, she does have a Detroit edge to her. Nice. So obviously, Chuck, we're talking about California and where the whole thing got its name. And apparently no one fully knows what we're going to talk about is an interpretation that's been around since the 19th century, but it's pretty widely considered as the correct answer. But no one wrote down like, this is what California's named after. And some earlier attempts to explain it

is that it was derived from the Arabic word caliph as in caliphate. Okay. There's a Greek word called calos. That means beautiful. Okay. And then some people said, no, no, it's after caliente, which means hot and furnace, which means furnace. So California's a hot furnace. And everybody's just like, just go back to bed. Yeah. And he's rather lovely, actually. Restart this day, man. So there's this guy in, I think, the 1840s or 1850s who, he was like an amateur historian. He wrote a paper saying, this is where I think California comes from. I always said, this is pretty good, man. Yeah, I think this makes a lot of sense. There was an author named Garcy Rodriguez de Montalvo of Seville, a Spanish writer who wrote a novel called,

man, I was doing so good, Amidus de Gaula or Amidus of Gaul. And Amidus was, I guess, sort of an action hero of the time. And the book was really big, so much so that Montalvo wrote a sequel to the book featuring the son of Amidus, Las Vegas de Esplandien, or the exploits of Esplandien. And this is just sort of a setup of these books and a very kind of neat little factoid that lies within. Yeah, like these two books right here were like Tom Clancy and Michael Critchton all rolled together. Like they were huge. I've heard it like that. Is it? They were huge. Is it Crichton? I've always said Crichton, but I have until just a minute ago. But I've heard it as Critchton. Let's say Michael Crichton. How about this? Let's say Tom Clancy and Laura Ingles Wilder

mashed together. Like that is the level of popularity that these books had in the early 16th century, like 1510, I think. That's right. And so we mentioned the first one because the second one is where California possibly comes from or the name California comes from because in Las Vegas de Esplandien, a lot of the action is the sacking of the town of Constantinople held then by the Turks, by a bunch of different countries and nations and armies sacking the city together as allies. And one of them is a group of basically Amazonian women who bear a striking resemblance to the Amazons that produced Diana, aka Wonder Woman. I thought the same thing. But in this case, these women were led, these women warriors were led by Queen Caliphia.

Yeah, Caliphia. Looks familiar. They're very strong. They had pet griffins and they fed men to these griffins. Yeah, their male offspring got fed to the griffins. Pretty cool story, I think. It was like the scum manifesto. That's right, which you can find in the book. The stuff you should know book that is. So he described their homeland. Apparently, the homeland was called California. And if that's true, then that seems pretty straightforward to me, right? Yeah, it definitely does. But the interesting thing is that's not really the end of the story. There's a lot more to it. And this antiquarian basically said, here's basically proof. And I think we'll take a break and then talk about that in a minute.

How about that? Sounds good. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another

one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesha Tickler and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I

rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, we were saying that in the book, Les Circus de Esplendium, that they mentioned that Queen Caliphia is from California. That's the name of this mystical land where there are all

these beautiful cliffs. The only metal to be found there is gold. And so all of the warriors under Queen Caliphia wore like golden armor while they were flying around on their griffins. It was just kind of like this mystical place, basically paradise on earth, right? And so when the Spanish showed up around the time that these books were at the peak of their popularity, we can assume that some of them would be familiar with this wildly popular work and the land of California that was described in it. Yeah. And that they might have literally brought these books over. The Spanish believed there's an area south, in Southern California, kind of like as far south as you can get, called Baja California. And I think that's actually

Mexico, right? Or is that part of California? It is. Well, I think there's Baja California and there's Baja Mexico. And I think there's just like the border goes right through it. As far as I know. I've never been down there. I always wanted to, but Emily and I were so broke when we lived in LA that we didn't do a ton of traveling throughout California. We did most of that since we've moved, ironically. But Baja California, they thought was an island, just like the island where Queen Caliphia or Caliphia lived in the novel. And so they called, you know, these European colonizers called it California. They later learned that it was not an island. Actually, it's a peninsula. And Baja means lower California. And then the upper part

was named as Alta California. Not to be confused with what we think of as northern in Southern California. It was literally like sort of what we think of as Mexico and just California. Yeah. And so initially when they came upon Baja, they thought Baja was an island, not a peninsula. They didn't figure that out. So they didn't call Baja Baja California. They just called it California. Because in the book, California was an island as well, right? Right. But it wasn't until that expedition where they're like, oh, there's this thing just keeps on going, that they came up with Baja California and Alta California. And then Alta California just became California. That's what everybody calls California now.

Right. But it gets a little more interesting too, because the word California goes back supposedly even further, they think. This book was written in 1510. But apparently the author of the book based part of it on the song of Roland, which is a French poem written in the 11th century about Charlemagne in the eighth century. And in this poem, Charlemagne lists a bunch of people that he expected to like combat him and come after him and rebel against him, including men of Africa, this is in quotes, men of Africa and those of California. Or California. Either way, C-A-L-I-F-E-R-N-E. California is what the people in the Ozarks call California today.

Have you been thinking of that joke for the past day? My friend, it literally rolled out of my brain on my tongue. Kudos. Kudos. Thank you. Thank you. California. You've got Charlemagne worried about California and people say, well, what is California in this song of Roland? And it turns out that at the time when the song of Roland was popular, what did you say, the 11th century, 11th and 12th century, I guess?

Yeah. 11th century is when it was written. Okay. So people were very, very familiar with the town that was basically called California. Like he was referring to the author of the song of Roland was referring to a real place in what's today Algeria. But at the time was considered the Barbary Coast. And there were basically fortified settlements that were called generically Kala or Kalat. And they often would be, they'd combine that word, meaning like today you'd call it like Fort Josh, if I founded a fortified town. This is virtually what we're talking about here. And one of these particular places, actually a very magnificent, seemingly wealthy place,

was founded by a warrior named Benny Hamad, Benny Hamad, not Benny like Benny Hill, B E N I, Hamad. And he named, he was followed by a group called the Benny Ifrin. And now we kind of start to very get to the root of where California came from. That's right. But Kala, I think Kala was just sort of a prefix for a lot of different places, right? At the time. Yeah, the fortified town. It's like what we would say, instead of fort, they would, they said Kala. Yeah. So Kala Ifrin, which could be sort of loosely looked at as maybe California,

that actually crumbled in the 12th century after the song of Roland, not too long after the song of Roland was written. And I guess they think, what I don't see is the connection. I mean, do you think he lifted that all those years later for his book? That seems a bit of a stretch. Yeah. No, I don't know. I think so. This North African city, Kala Ifrin, was very, very famous in Europe. The Europeans knew all about this. It was almost like a city of gold almost. It was extremely wealthy. So it's entirely possible that it survived knowledge of this thing, survived a few hundred years, or kind of morphed into this generic term for

like a paradise on earth. So like this guy might have just grabbed this term possibly without knowing its origin. But then what's interesting is that got morphed into the state of California and everybody forgot that origin too. So it's basically a famous North African city was cited in the song of Roland, which ended up in the Las Sergas de Esplandien, which ended up as the name for California as far as we can tell. I love it. I buy it. I do too. I'm buying it big time. I'll buy it twice on Sunday. And since I said that, everybody, short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.