Acadia: what's in a name?

Dispersion of the Acadians, from a Painting at St. Joseph’s College

Acadia: where did the name now woven tightly into the history of Nova Scotia come from? In 1899, historian, W.F. Ganong, investigated the evidence and sources.

Larcadia.

L’Acaddie.

Two Abnaki words aki-adie (land of dogs)

The Micmac word academ (we dwell), or led-lacadem (where we dwell), " ...that is our village.”

Graphic: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

"From the Micmac akadie: an inseparable suffix of many place-names in the Maritime Provinces meaning place of occurrence of, as in Shubenacadie (place of ground nuts)."

Ganong's short piece bristles with sources and scholarship, and comes to perhaps not the conclusion we might expect. Find this engaging detective work here.

commons.wikipedia.org

His paper was published in Vol. 3, No. 4 of The New Brunswick Magazine, edited by W.K. Reynolds in 1899.

To the French who arrived and settled here, after a few generations they were proud to call themselves Acadian. Their history defines the word to this day.