Etymology of Peru

Why El Peru?

One question I always ask is why it is the Repubica del Peru and not Republica de Peru.  The name Peru 

Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616) was one of the first historians to tackle the etymology of “Peru”. Garcilaso, commonly known as “El Inca,” was the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noblewoman. His Comentarios Reales de los Incas, published in 1609, remains one of the most important contemporary accounts of the Incas and the Spanish Conquest.

In the first volume of his Comentarios, Garcilaso offers one of the first answers as to why Peru is calledt “Peru”. According to “El Inca,” a group of Spanish explorers landed on the Pacific coast somewhere south of the equator, where they encountered a native fisherman at the mouth of a river.

With no interpreter at hand, the Spaniards tried to ask the fisherman his name and the name of the land on which they now stood. The native replied that his name was Berú and that the place where he stood was Pelú (which, according to Garcilaso, was the local word for “river”)

Over time, the country became known as El Peru, the fact that it came from the word for a river is perhaps the reason for the article (El).