How did the state of Arizona get the name and when??

Answer 1

Historians disagree about the origin of the name "Arizona" and its attachment to the region. Three possible derivations are:
O'odham words "alĭ ṣon" ("small spring"), actually the name of a town, which is called "Arizonac" in English, about eight miles (13 km) south of the United States–Mexican border. Historically, it may have been "alĭ son" or even "alĭ sona". The O'odham "l" is a voiced alveolar lateral fricative, which might sound to a Spanish or English speaker like an "r" sound. Later in the mid 18th century Spanish missionaries changed Father Eusebio Francisco Kino's maps of the area; they renamed the town Arizonac as Arizona. As the maps were republished and circulated in Europe, the name Arizona became attached to the whole northern part of New Spain.
Spanish words "árida zona" ("arid zone").
A Nahuatl or Aztec word "arizuma" meaning "silver-bearing".
Meeting its original native inhabitants, Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan, explored the area in 1539. Coronado's expedition entered the area in 1540–42 during its search for Cíbola. Father Kino developed a chain of missions and taught the Indians Christianity in Pimería Alta (now southern Arizona and northern Sonora) in the 1690s and early 1700s. Spain founded fortified towns (presidios) at Tubac in 1752 and Tucson in 1775. All of what is now Arizona became part of Mexico's northwest frontier upon the Mexican assertion of independence from Spain in 1810. The United States took possession of most of Arizona at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, after paying the Mexican government. In 1853 the land below the Gila River was acquired from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. Arizona was administered as part of the Territory of New Mexico until it was organized into a separate territory on February 24, 1863.
Other names including "Gadsonia", "Pimeria", "Montezuma", "Arizuma", and "Arizonia" had been considered for the territory [1], however when President Lincoln signed the final bill, it read "Arizona", and the name became permanent. Montezuma was not the Mexican Emperor, but the sacred name of a divine hero to the Pueblo people of the Gila valley, and was probably considered -and rejected - for its sentimental value, before the name "Arizona" was settled upon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona