Iceland is called Iceland because an early Norse explorer saw coastal waters filled with ice after a harsh winter and named the land “Ísland,” meaning “Land of Ice.”

The main historical story

  • In the 9th century, the Norwegian Viking Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson sailed deliberately to the island that would become Iceland.
  • After a difficult winter in the northwest, he climbed a mountain, saw a fjord choked with drift ice, and named the country Ísland.
  • The Old Norse word “ís” means ice, and “land” means land, so the name is literally “Land of Ice.”

Myths and alternative theories

  • A popular modern myth says early settlers called it Iceland on purpose to scare others away from what was actually a green, fertile island, keeping it for themselves.
  • Historians generally see this as a later, “colorful” tale; the sagas and linguistic evidence support the Hrafna-Flóki ice-fjord story as the origin of the name.

Why Greenland sounds “warmer” than Iceland

  • Another famous Viking, Erik the Red, named Greenland to make it sound attractive to potential settlers, even though it is mostly covered in ice.
  • This contrast (a relatively green Iceland vs. icy Greenland) helps fuel the ongoing curiosity and online forum discussions around “why is Iceland called Iceland” and whether the Vikings were using clever marketing or just reacting to what they saw.

Language and modern usage

  • In Icelandic, the country is still called “Ísland,” and many other European languages (like German “Island” and French “Islande”) reflect this form rather than a word meaning “ice.”
  • The name has stuck for over a millennium, even though much of Iceland’s inhabited coastline is relatively green in summer and far milder than the name suggests.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.