Thursday, July 16, 2026

Question: Alcatraz takes its name from an old Spanish word for which seabird, a nod to the flocks that once nested on the island?

Answer: The pelican. When Spanish naval officer Juan Manuel de Ayala charted San Francisco Bay in 1775, he named the rocky outcrop Isla de los Alcatraces, commonly translated as “Island of the Pelicans,” using the archaic Spanish word “alcatraz” for pelican. The name was later shortened and Anglicized to Alcatraz. The bird reference long predates the island’s later roles as a military fort, a military prison, and the federal penitentiary that closed in 1963.