Virginia

… the name applied to the American territory granted by Queen Elizabeth to Walter Raleigh and explored in 1584 by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. The earliest evidence of the use of the name occurs before March 25, 1585, in Raleigh's seal as Lord and Governor of Virginia, which is now in the British Museum. The name honored Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen," and was applied in the sixteenth century to the area explored from bases on Roanoke Island. In the seventeenth century, it came to be applied to the permanent settlement around Jamestown, and, after the granting of the Carolina Charter in 1663, it no longer was applied correctly to the territory that was soon to become North Carolina. See also South Virginia.