Santo Domingo

Bartholomew Columbus, brother of Christopher, founded a settlement on the eastern bank of the Ozama River in 1496, naming it La Nueva Isabela after the Spanish queen. A hurricane destroyed it in 1502, and the new governor, Nicolás de Ovando, rebuilt the city on the western bank. He named it Santo Domingo, after Domingo de Guzmán, the Spanish friar who founded the Dominican Order in the 13th century. The founding date fell on a Sunday, which the Spanish took as a favorable sign.

The name Domingo derives from the Latin Dominicus, meaning of the Lord or belonging to the Lord, from Dominus, the Latin word for Lord. Domingo de Guzmán was born in Calaruega, Castile, around 1170, and his name carried a double meaning: in Latin, dies Dominica referred to both the Lord's Day and Sunday, the day of the week on which he was born. The conjunction of saint, name, and day of the week made the naming feel ordained to 16th-century Spanish administrators. They were attentive to such signs.

Under this name, Santo Domingo became the seat of Spanish colonial power in the Americas. The first cathedral in the New World, the first university, and the first hospital were all built here in the early 16th century. The city's street grid became the template for colonial towns across Latin America, from Mexico City to Lima. It was called the gateway to the New World long before that phrase became a cliché.

The Dominican Republic, which declared independence in 1844, takes its name from this city, which takes its name from a saint who lived in medieval Castile. That chain of naming connects a 12th-century Spanish friar to a 21st-century Caribbean nation through five centuries of unbroken use. The name of the city has not changed since Ovando rebuilt it in 1502. Storms, occupations, and revolutions have passed through, but the name held.