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What is the Origin of the Name "Azores"?

The name given to the Azores remains shrouded in some controversy. According to tradition, the designation "Azores" resulted from the supposed abundance of birds of prey with the same name that the discoverers encountered on the islands. According to Diogo Gomes' account, the navigators who set out in search of lands to the west found several uninhabited islands and saw kites, goshawks, and other birds. In the early 16th century, Valentim Fernandes confirmed the same idea, stating that, due to the many goshawks found, the islands were given the name "Azores."

However, Diogo Gomes' account had already implied that there was no clear distinction between goshawks and kites. Later, Furtuoso himself, noting that in his time there were no goshawks but rather kites, admitted that the discoverers and settlers of the archipelago may have mistaken kites for goshawks due to their similarity. In fact, seeing many kites in the air, which resembled goshawks and were mistaken for them, they named the island "Azores." From then on, the idea spread that there had been a misunderstanding in the naming of the archipelago, as no goshawks were actually found there, only kites— a species that can still be seen soaring in the skies of the islands.

But the discussion does not end there. According to José Agostinho, not only were those who called the supposed birds in abundance "goshawks" mistaken (as it would be unreasonable for such a bird to have mysteriously gone extinct), but also those who assumed a confusion between goshawks and kites, despite their relative similarities. The scholar even goes so far as to claim that kites arrived in the archipelago with Portuguese navigators and settlers and that, before that, there were no objective conditions for kites or similar birds to exist there.

After categorically refuting that the birds found in the archipelago were either goshawks or kites, the author presents a new explanation, based on a passage by Martim Behaim, a German cosmographer who lived in the archipelago during the 15th century. In this passage, it is said that when the Azores islands were discovered and the navigators disembarked, they found only deserted lands and birds so tame that they did not flee from anyone. Since there were no signs of human presence, this was the reason the birds were not easily frightened; thus, these islands were named the "Azores."

Based on this intriguing passage, the author concludes: "What bird is so easily domesticated that it ceases to be skittish and does not flee from anyone? The goshawk… Wasn't this tameness of the birds something that would have deeply impressed Prince Henry’s sailors? Wouldn't that have been enough reason for them to return to Portugal claiming they had discovered lands where all the birds were as tame and domestic as goshawks?"

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