San Diego de Alcala.

Zorro Garden Nudist Colony - Balboa Park 1935

As a person born in San Diego, and one who has spent the majority of his life here, one would expect that I would know what the words San Diego mean. Until a very short time ago, a person that made that supposition would be dead wrong.

I always supposed that San Diego, first visited by the Portuguese born Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and claimed for Spain under the flag of Castile in 1542, was a diminution of Saint Don. (Now Cabrillo actually named the place San Miguel, after the smallest boat in his fleet but he was suffering from a case of gangrene that he picked up on San Miguel Island and died. It was named San Diego by Sebastian Vizcaino some sixty years later.) Anyway the don appellation would be incorrect. Don translates into Donaldo. Diego is actually a spanish translation for James. Now how do we get Diego from James, you ask?

The answer to our linguistics lesson actually lies in the bible. Ya'akov יעקב was a name given to the grandson of Abraham. It has a loose translation of "he who protects" and is a derivation of the Hebrew word for heel, since he held his twin brother Esau's heel in the story of Genesis.

Ya'akov morphed into the greek word  Ἰάκωβος, Iakobos. In turn Iakobus turned into the latin Iacomus. That in turn changed to Gemmes in French and it was a short stone's throw to James in English. Now it starts to get tricky.

Here the scholars start to differ. Iacomas was also imported into spanish and shortened to Iaco and then Iago. It was either lengthened to Tiago or shortened from Saint Iago into its present construction. Other experts discount this whole line and say that it is merely a construct of the latin term didacus, to be instructed. I have seen this latter line of reasoning completely refuted and tend to agree with the critics.

From Wiki: This form, and its Spanish equivalent "Didaco", were most likely created in retrospect (that is, to translate Diego into Latin, as opposed to being the source of the name Diego). There are no mentions of Spanish people named Didacus during the Middle Ages. During those times, it was common practice to Latinize existing names, as in Ludovicus for Ludwig (Luis in Spanish).

Here is the etymological translation from the Online Etymology Dictionary: James - masc. proper name, name of two of Christ's disciples, late 12c. M.E. vernacular form of L.L. Jacomus (cf. O.Fr. James, Sp. Jaime, It. Giacomo), altered from L. Jacobus (see Jacob). The Welsh form was Iago, the Cornish Jago.

The Hotel St. James was San Diego's first grand building. Bit edwardian looking mansards. Built in 1885, it was once the tallest building in the city. I bought this old tin sign in San Francisco earlier this year, never realizing that the Hotel was actually named for the city I was born in. The hotel was torn down in 1912, and rebuilt the next year. Now a Ramada stands in its place.

Speaking of San Diego, I share with you a picture I  had reproduced at the photo archives of the San Diego Historical Society many years ago. Cabrillo Bridge in 1928, and the lily pond that lay underneath it. I would have loved to see Balboa Park in its infancy.


The Photo Archives in the Park are a great way to spend a rainy day, they have a vast collection of old photographs. Only costs a few bits to research and browse. My favorites are the volumes on the missions and the early photos of the 1915 and 1935 Expositions.