The story
- Italian · derived fromMonte Real
- French · borrowed fromMontréal
- English todayMontreal
From French Montréal; from Mont Royal (“Mount Royal”) (mont + royal), after the nearby hill by Jacques Cartier. It is uncertain how Royal became -real. A common explanation is that real is the Middle French form of Royal, but Cartier himself recorded le mont Royal when he named it. It may have perhaps been from the Italian G.B. Rasmusio's 1556 map translating the name to Italian Monte Real.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.