OT: Monterrey/Monterey

[Arneal]

Ever wonder why Monterrey, Mexico and Monterey, California have different spellings? Yeah, me neither, but I was reading a biography of Juan de Onate when a new character showed up in the book. That new character was none other than Don Gaspar de Zuniga y Acevedo, the Count of Monterrey! Very exciting indeed!

The year was 1595 and the Count was named Viceroy of New Spain. Having read 59 pages of the book I could see that the area around Monterrey, Mexico was likely to be settled soon and it seemed reasonable that the city was named for the Viceroy. So now, without putting any effort into the project, I had already figured out why the Mexican city was spelled Monterrey.

But what about California? My own memory banks told me that Monterey, California was founded shortly after San Diego, around 1770, by Fray Junipero Serra. This was much too late to be named for the Viceroy. So how had Monterey been named? A little study revealed that, while Monterey had been founded in 1770, the Bay had been discovered in 1602 by Sebastian Vizcaino. Sebastian had wanted to settled the area, but had been called off to search for some islands around Japan.

I have pretty much determined that both places were named for the same Viceroy, but it is a mystery to me why the Californians are missing an 'r' in their name. Maybe it was a clerical error, maybe it was done on purpose by someone, like myself, who has a difficult time pronouncing the spanish 'rr', or maybe the letter was stolen by a crafty Norwegian who needed it for use as his name.

[R]

What?!? Well, err... Anyway, interesting history lesson!

[Arneal]

After I posted this thread I realized that you probably were not guilty because in your photo you do not appear to have been alive hundreds of years ago when the "R" dissappeared. I apologise for besmirching your name.