Banff may be Canada’s first national park, but a small part of it honors a U.S. President. A pinnacle on the eastern side of the 9,000-foot-tall Castle Mountain is named Eisenhower Tower. In 1946, then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Canada, and Prime Minister Mackenzie King named the peak to honor Eisenhower.

While it's no longer a commonly used term, “nabob” is a word borrowed from Hindu that refers to a wealthy or influential person. (It was once a title carried by provincial governors in India's Mogul Empire.) In 19th and early 20th-century San Francisco, “nabob” was shortened to “nob” and was used to describe the early tycoons who built magnificent homes on a steep city hill that became known as Nob Hill.

The twisted, spiky Joshua tree grows abundantly in its namesake national park in California, where the Mojave and Colorado deserts converge. The tree’s scientific name is Yucca brevifolia, but according to legend, it was 19th-century Mormon pioneers who gave it the name Joshua tree, after the Old Testament prophet. Joshua Tree National Park became a national park in 1994 and covers nearly 800,000 acres in southeastern California.

Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia is known for its giant nave and vast dome ceiling — an impressive feat of construction, especially considering it was built in less than six years. The sacred site has gone by many names over the years, and “Hagia Sophia” — which means “Holy Wisdom” in Greek — didn’t pop up until about 430 CE.

Hudson River, which flows from upstate New York down to New York City; Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada; and the Hudson Strait, linking the Atlantic Ocean and Labrador Sea, are all named after Henry Hudson. In the early 17th century, the English explorer and navigator was tasked with finding a more efficient route from Europe to Asia, although he ultimately failed to do so.

After Scottish explorer David Livingstone viewed the spectacular waterfall on the Zambezi River in 1855, he named it Victoria Falls, after the queen. But the Kololo tribe that was living in the area at the time called it Mosi-oa-Tunya, which translates to “The Smoke that Thunders.” Forming the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls produces the largest sheet of falling water in the world.

As a member of the Commonwealth, there are quite a few streets, neighborhoods, cities, landmarks, and natural features in Canada named after royals. But Queen Victoria has more Canadian places named after her than any other person. These include Victoria, the capital of the province of British Columbia, as well as Regina, capital of the province of Saskatchewan. (Regina is Latin for “queen” and was named for Victoria, the ruling monarch in the late 19th century.)

Its Polynesian name is Rapa Nui, but this tiny island was reached by Europeans when Dutch explorers arrived on Easter Day in 1722. They named it Paaseiland, which translates to “Easter Island.” The giant stone head statues, called moai, have given the island a mysterious legacy. The island was annexed by Chile in the 19th century.

New York City’s Madison Avenue starts at Madison Square on 23rd Street, after which the street is named. Madison Square, in turn, gets its name from the fourth President of the United States, James Madison, who earned the nickname “Father of the Constitution.” First designated as public property in 1686, Madison Square was redeveloped and enclosed in 1847, becoming the city’s largest park at the time.

When Spanish sailors arrived at the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador in 1535, tortoises were so abundant that they named the archipelago after the creatures. (The Spanish word for tortoise is “galápago.”) At one point, some 250,000 tortoises called the waters home, but today only 15,000 remain in the wild in the Galápagos.

Known as “the lost city of the Incas,” the mountaintop citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru is one of the best preserved sites of the Inca Empire. Its name comes from the Quechua language: “Machu” means "old" or "ancient," and “picchu” translates to "mountain" or "peak." The site was once home to a culture that believed they were the direct descendants of the sun god, Inti.

Bustling Times Square was once named Long Acre Square, after London’s carriage district. The name had no real cultural significance to New York, so when the New York Times moved its headquarters to midtown Manhattan in 1905, it was used as an opportunity to change the name to something unique to the city.

The name of Africa's tallest peak (19,341 feet above sea level) comes from two local languages: Swahili and Chagga. When combined, the words translate to "Shining Mountain" or "White Mountain." Alternate names given to Kilimanjaro throughout history translate to "Mountain Where Birds Cannot Fly" and "Mountain of Silver Moons."

Say “Big Ben” and you immediately think of the massive clock tower at the British Houses of Parliament. The bell inside the tower is called Big Ben; however, the tower itself is named Elizabeth Tower, and the clock is called the Great Clock. You’ll hear Big Ben striking an E note every hour, but there are four other bells in Elizabeth Tower to finish out the famous tune.

Known to most tourists as the French Quarter, the famed section of New Orleans is also called the Vieux Carré. The term means “Old Square” in French, and was coined in the 19th century when the neighborhood was becoming a tourist destination. The quarter is the historic core of New Orleans, and sprung up not long after the city was founded by the French in 1718.

The Golden Gate was named after the narrow, 300-foot-deep Golden Gate Strait that flows underneath it, linking the Pacific Ocean to the San Francisco Bay. The strait itself was named after the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, because it reminded explorer John C. Fremont of the other harbor across the Atlantic. In 1846, he named it “Chrysopylae” in Greek, which translates to “golden gate.”

Hollywood actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1956, becoming the Princess of Monaco at the age of 26. A street named in her honor, Avenue Princesse Grace, was once the most expensive street in the world — with real estate that averaged a whopping $17,750 USD per square foot in 2008. Prices on the waterfront avenue have since gone down, but the stretch remains one of Monaco’s most luxurious streets.

The name of Florence’s most famous arch bridge, Ponte Vecchio, simply translates to “Old Bridge” in Italian. And since it was completed way back in 1345, it certainly lives up to its name. While most of Italy’s bridges at the time were semicircular-arch designs — requiring more piers in the water and blocking navigation underneath — Ponte Vecchio was the first segmental arch bridge in the West.

Although everyone knows Wall Street as the home of the New York Stock Exchange, its name has nothing to do with the stock market. In the 17th century, Dutch settlers on the island of Manhattan built a defensive wall on the southernmost tip to combat pirates and British invaders, although it was never used for its intended purpose and was later removed.

In 1884, New York attorney Charles E. Rushmore was reviewing the legal titles of properties in the Black Hills when he asked a local guide about the name of a granite outcropping. The guide said, “Never had a name, but from now on we'll call it Rushmore.” This turned out to be incorrect, as the sacred mountain had two different Lakota names, but the Mount Rushmore name stuck.