In the category of "you may be interested to know" . Using the National Library's digitised newspapers, I went looking for the origins of the name Queensland and found the first mention of the name was on Friday 8 July 1956 in the "Argus": http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5684127 The first mention in Queensland itself was on Wed 20 July 1856 in the Moreton Bay Courier: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3721140 However, the story goes (and I can't give you a reference for this at the moment) that it was Queen Victoria herself who chose the name Queensland. The name that had been proposed was Cooksland and we can find newspaper references to it. The first being again in the Argus on Tues 13 July 1847: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4761946 where the Rev Lang (after whom Lang Park was named, before they called it Suncorp Stadium) talks about "the Territory of Cooksland, the Northern division of the colony of New South Wales". The Rev Lang has been attributed with coining the name "Cooksland" but I don't know if that is true or not. The first reference to Cooksland in Queensland is in the Moreton Bay Courier on Sat 7 Aug 1847: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3712691 and again the name does crop up in a direct quote from the writings of Rev Lang. Interestingly in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser on Wednesday 6 October 1847 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article693919 we see that the Rev Lang is objecting to the name "North Australia" and advocating Cooksland, suggesting that North Australia was an earlier proposed name. The Rev Lang also wanted what is now the northern part of New South Wales (including the Clarence & Richmond Rivers to be part of Cooksland). And indeed there are earlier newspaper references to it on Saturday 27 June 1846 in connection with an appointment of a Governor of North Australia, a matter which seems to have bemused the editors of a number of newspapers as there was no such colony proclaimed at that time: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article682356 but it appears that at the time they were thinking that the Colony of North Australia would be settled by ticket-of-leave men and its border run along the 26 degree of latitude (just north of Noosa) obviously intending Moreton Bay and Brisbane to remain part of New South Wales. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4759578 Amazing what you can find in these old newspapers. Kerry