The Azores archipelago owes its name to the goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), because when the archipelago’s discoverers arrived, they thought they saw goshawks. It’s the bird that appears on the Azores flag.
Later, they concluded that the birds were, in fact, a local subspecies of the common buzzard (Buteo buteo), now nicknamed “milhafres” or “queimados” by the Azoreans.
Another theory suggests that Azores comes from the Italian name Azzurro or the Latin name Azureus, meaning blue in Portuguese, as a reference to the blue sky on a bright, clear day when the islands were discovered from afar. This theory is supported by another that claims the Azores islands already appeared on Genoese nautical charts from the 14th century.
We have many more stories to tell; come visit us and discover the best-kept secret of the Atlantic Ocean.
