Many people don't realize that the name of my birth state has a rather unusual etymology. California was named by Spanish explorers after a fictional place, which is named in a novel they were familiar with, Las sergas de Esplandián, by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. Montalvo, in turn, made up the name, probably under the influence of La Chanson de Roland, from a few centuries earlier, where we can read,
Morz est mis nies, ki tant me fist cunquere
Encuntre mei revelerunt li Seisne,
E Hungre e Bugre e tante gent averse,
Romain, Puillain et tuit icil de Palerne
E cil d'Affrike e cil de Califerne;
I suppose these medieval and renaissance authors were trying to evoke the "enemy" of Christiandom, i.e. the Caliphate. Thus California has the same "conceptual etymology" as ISIS, via a very different path.
[daily log: walking, 7km]
