How Did The Solomon Island Get Its Name?

The Solomon Islands were discovered by Alvaro de Mandaña de Nehra in 1568. He was commander of a Spanish exploration voyage from Peru in search of "Terra Australis" - a fabled continent thought to be to the west of South America

After two months at sea they sighted land and which they initially assumed was the great undiscovered continent. Later they found out that it was simply one of a group of islands. Mandaña was sure that these were simply outposts of the continent, just as Columbus had discovered the islands of the Caribbean before his discovery of the Americas.

The islands were named the Solomon Islands because the devout Catholic discoverers assumed that this was the Biblical place called Ophir (1 Kings 10:11) from where King Solomon's ships brought gold and precious stones. There have been many suggestions for the location of this place, but at that point in history, the explorers were expecting to find a land with large quantities of treasure.