Some scholars suggest the word may come from the Choctaw alba (meaning ‘plants’ or ‘weeds’) and amo (meaning ‘to cut’, ‘to trim’, or ‘to gather’), potentially meaning ‘clearers of the thicket’ or ‘herb gatherers’.

An 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed that “Alabama” meant ‘Here We Rest’, a notion popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek.

As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, and French maps identified the river as Rivière des Alibamons.

The name “Alabama” first appears in written accounts from the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540, with Garcilaso de la Vega using Alibamo, the Knight of Elvas using Alibamu, and Rodrigo Ranjel using Limamu.

Historical spellings of the word “Alabama” include Alibamo, Alibamu, Limamu, Alibamon, Alibamu, Alabamo, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, and Allibamou.

In the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo (or variously Albaama or Albàamo in different dialects; the plural form is Albaamaha).

The name of the Alabama River and state is derived from the Alabama people, a Muskogean-speaking tribe whose members lived just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the river.

The first European settlement in Alabama was founded by the French at Old Mobile in 1702. The city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711.

Originally, many native tribes inhabited present-day Alabama.

Alabama was a Spanish territory in the sixteenth century until the French acquired it in the early eighteenth century. The British won the territory in 1763, and Spain held Mobile as part of Spanish West Florida until 1813.