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One of the medium-sized cities in present-day Colombia, with a population of around 300 thousand, is called Armenia. According to its Wikipedia entry, some people believe it was named in memory of the Armenian victims of the Hamidian massacres of 1894–97 and the genocide of 1915–23, but this cannot be true since the city's name was decided by a vote held on 30 November 1889, little more than a month after foundation and five years before the first-mentioned massacres began.

So how come this city in South America has exactly the same name as a country in the Caucasus?

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    Have you read the paper by Matiossian, Vartan (2010). "An Enduring Myth: The Origins of the Name "Armenia" in Colombia", cited by the Wikipedia article?
    – kimchi lover
    Commented Nov 28, 2020 at 18:24
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    Very interesting question. +1. BTW, the name of the founder's fiancee is Arsenia - a very frequent name in Armenian.
    – Gangnus
    Commented Nov 28, 2020 at 18:35
  • @kimchilover - Yes. Gangnus - That is tantalising information! I wonder whether she had any Armenian roots. The only surnames in her background that I can find are her parents': "Cardona" and "Buitrago". (Article.) Perhaps someone suggested naming the town after her and then either it was decided not to but to use "Armenia" which contained an echo of her name, at least for those whose ears were attuned, or someone may have changed the s to an m either by accident or on purpose.
    – user46904
    Commented Nov 28, 2020 at 23:05
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    Welcome to History:Stack Exchange. Thank you for your question; please consider revising it to be more in line with our community expectations. Like many other stacks, we expect questions to provide evidence of prior research. That helps us to understand the question, and avoids our repeating work you've already done. Our help center, and other stacks provide additional resources to assist with revisions.
    – MCW ♦
    Commented Dec 28, 2020 at 19:46
  • I like it as it is. Who is "our community"? If you don't like it, delete it. I was asking a q on a company's website, not acting as a member of a community. I don't mean to be rude, but am I conversing with a human or a program? "Prior research" means "stuff somebody discovered while looking". Before my interest arose in this q, I knew about neither the Hamidian massacres of 1894-97 nor the vote of 30 Nov 1889. Most humans would surely surmise that I searched for info and found the aforementioned. I can't see any reason to add a note to make that clear when it should be obvious.
    – user46904
    Commented Dec 29, 2020 at 20:49

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According to wiki, another massacre of Armenians happened in Turkey during and before the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Maybe, the town was named in the honour of that massacre, and afterwards, when greater Hamidian massacres happened, they eclipsed the earlier and less bloody actions and people started to repeat that Hamidian massacres were the reason of naming?

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