How did the Philippines get its name?
The Philippines is named after Felipe II, king of Spain from 1556 to 1598. In 1543, when he was a prince of sixteen, men of Ruy López de Villalobos’s expedition from Mexico called the islands of Samar and Leyte the Felipinas after him. Twenty-two years later Legazpi’s expedition came to stay and used the name in every letter it sent home, and the name of two islands became the name of the whole country.
- Named after
- Felipe, or Philip, II of Spain (1527–1598), king from 1556
- Named by
- The expedition of Ruy López de Villalobos, sent from Mexico in 1542
- When
- 1543
- First given to
- Samar and Leyte
- Spellings
- Felipinas, then Filipinas; in Filipino, Pilipinas; in English, the Philippine Islands, or the Philippines
- An earlier name
- The Archipelago of San Lázaro, Magellan’s name of 1521
Before the name
The people of the islands had names for their own islands and towns, which the Spaniards wrote down as best they could: Cibabao on Samar, Mazaua for Limasawa, Zubu for Cebu, Maynila. There was no name for the whole archipelago, because it was not one country. It was made up of many small communities, each with its own chief, as Legazpi’s men found: “districts like communal towns, each district having a chief.” (Chapter 8 and Chapter 9)
1521: the Archipelago of San Lázaro
Magellan’s fleet sighted the islands on 16 March 1521, the day Pigafetta calls the Sabbath of St. Lazarus, and Magellan named them the Archipelago of San Lázaro. The name did not last. Spaniards also called the islands beyond the Moluccas the Western Islands, the Islas del Poniente. (Pigafetta’s Log and Chapter 2)
1543: Felipinas
Villalobos sailed from Mexico in 1542 with six ships and about 370 men, to settle in the Western Islands and find the way back. They reached Mindanao in February 1543, which they named Cesarea Karoli after the emperor Charles V, and starved on the small island of Sarangani. On 4 August 1543 Villalobos sent a ship north to look for food among “some islands … which we call Felipinas, after our fortunate prince.” (Chapter 2)
The prince was Felipe, the emperor’s sixteen-year-old son and heir. The islands were Samar and Leyte. The name is usually credited to Villalobos, as the expedition’s commander.
1559–1565: the name spreads
Most of Villalobos’s names did not last: Mindanao never became Cesarea Karoli. Felipinas did, because it reached Spain. When Felipe, now king, ordered a new expedition in 1559, he told his viceroy to send it to islands “such as the Phelipinas.” When Legazpi arrived in 1565 he wrote, “We reached these Felipinas,” and his men used the name in every letter they sent home. Because Legazpi’s expedition stayed, the name of two islands became the name of all the islands Spain ruled from Manila. (Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 8)
Felipinas, Filipinas, Philippines
Spanish spelling settled on Filipinas, still the country’s name in Spanish; in Filipino it is Pilipinas. The revolutionaries who declared independence in 1898 kept the name: their republic of 1899 was the República Filipina. In English the islands became the Philippine Islands, their official name under American rule, and then the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935 and the Republic of the Philippines in 1946.
Who was a Filipino?
For most of the Spanish period, Filipino meant a Spaniard born in the islands. Spanish records called the people of the islands indios. In the late 1800s the reformers and revolutionaries, José Rizal among them, used Filipino for everyone born in the Philippines, and that is what it has meant ever since.
Should the name change?
Because the name honours a Spanish king, some Filipinos have proposed changing it. In 1978 Eddie Ilarde filed a bill to rename the country Maharlika, and in 2019 President Rodrigo Duterte revived the idea, though he later dropped that name. Neither came to anything. Under the Constitution of 1987 a new name needs a law passed by Congress and the people’s approval in a national referendum.
If you are writing about it
- Say who the name honours: Felipe II, who was still a prince in 1543.
- Give the year and the islands: 1543, Samar and Leyte, by Villalobos’s expedition.
- Explain why it lasted: Legazpi’s expedition used it from 1565, and stayed.
- Remember that the islands’ peoples had names of their own for their islands and towns long before.
Quotations follow the English translations in Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson’s The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898. About the sources →
More about the voyage: Timeline · Who’s who · The blood compact · The galleon trade · The founding of Manila