<P> The origin of the name of the U.S. state of Oregon is unknown, and a subject of some dispute . </P> <P> Most scholarship ascribes the earliest known use of the name "Oregon" to a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain, seeking money to finance an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage . The petition read "the rout...is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, and from thence to the River called by the Indians Ouragon ..." Thus, the early Oregon Country and now the present day state of Oregon took their names from the river now known as the Columbia River . </P>

What is the origin of the state name oregon