Idaho is a state in the northwestern United States, inland, with mountains and a lot of farm and open land. People know it for farming, and especially for potatoes: the ‘Idaho potato’ is a famous kind, and Americans really do make the potato-state joke. It is not on the ocean. The name is uncertain. It may come from a Plains Apache word ídaahȩ́ meaning ‘Comanche’, though the Oxford English Dictionary says that path from the Apache word to the state name has not been shown. Around 1860 the name Idaho was considered for land that later became Colorado; in 1863 it was given to Idaho County (now part of the state). That county had been named after a steamship launched on the Columbia River in 1860. An eccentric political lobbyist, George Maurice Willing, Jr., claimed he had coined the name after a girl — that claim is part of the mess, not a clean answer. For a student, the solid facts are: US state, northwest, potatoes; how the name arose is not settled.