Name of Montreal

Among the hypotheses concerning the origin of Montreal's name, the most acceptable to toponymy is the one that finds it to be a variant of Mount Royal.

Historian Marcel Trudel asked: "Where does the name "Mount Royal" come from?

"[2] Claude de Pontbriand (landlord of the Château de Montréal in France) accompanied Jacques Cartier on his expedition up the Saint Lawrence River and was with him on October 3, 1535, when he reached Hochelaga, on the site of the present-day city of Montreal.

When the missionary society Société Notre-Dame de Montréal sent Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve to found a city on the island of Montreal in 1642, they named the settlement Ville-Marie in honour of the Virgin, protectress of the venture.

Nonetheless, from the very beginning both the settlement of Ville-Marie and the mountain were known as Montreal to many people, including some mapmakers of the period.