Grenada and Saint George’s in other languages: the six parishes

Granada, La Grenade, Grenada: one island, three spellings

Grenada carries the name of a Spanish city it never belonged to. Spanish charts of the 1520s already wrote Granada, after the Andalusian city, and called the smaller islands to the north Los Granadillos, the little Granadas. Columbus had passed in 1498 and named the island La Concepción, a name that did not last. The French, who settled in 1649, wrote La Grenade; after the Treaty of Paris of 10 February 1763 the British adopted Grenada, with an e.

The table shows all three layers. Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Asturian, Nahuatl and Tetum say Granada, so the island and the city share a name; Latin uses Granata. French and Friulian keep Grenade, Norman Grénade and Walloon Grenåde. Most other languages copy the English form, from Hungarian Grenada to Japanese グレナダ, Gurenada. Persian lists گرانادا, Garânâdâ, as one of its forms, the reading of the Spanish city.

The capital is named after Saint George. Most languages keep the English Saint George’s, possessive s included: Russian Сент-Джорджес, Arabic سانت جورجز. Esperanto Sankta Georgo and Chinese 聖喬治, Shèng Qiáozhì, translate the saint instead, and the Katharevousa form Ἅγιος Γεώργιος does the same in Greek.

Parish towns and the national anthem

Only Saint George’s takes the name of its parish. The other parishes are governed from towns with names of their own: Saint Andrew from Grenville, Saint John from Gouyave, Saint Mark from Victoria and Saint Patrick from Sauteurs, the town on the northern cliffs. The national anthem is Hail Grenada, sung in English.