Nova Scotia is Latin for New Scotland. The province was named in 1621 when James I granted a colonial charter to William Alexander that established a colony of that name. The charter was written in Latin. The first European settlers were indeed from Scotland and they began arriving in 1622.1
1Alan Rayburn, Dictionary of Canadian Place Names (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 280;
Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names: United States and Canada, edited by Kelsie B. Harder (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976), 384.
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