List of provincial name etymologies of the Philippines

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Provinces in the Philippines get their names mainly from four sources: geographic features (like rivers and islands), plants or animals found in the area, local ethnic groups or notable people, or older local names.

Some province names also carry Spanish directional terms that split the province into parts. The common forms are del Norte and del Sur (North/South) and Occidental and Oriental (West/East), as well as Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western variants in some cases.

Examples of directional naming include:
- Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur
- Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur
- Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur
- Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur; Davao Oriental; Davao Occidental
- Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur
- Mindoro Occidental and Mindoro Oriental
- Misamis Occidental and Misamis Oriental
- Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental
- Samar (Eastern, Northern and Western)
- Surigao del Norte and Sur
- Leyte and Southern Leyte
- Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur
- Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur, and Zamboanga Sibugay

These patterns show how geography, history, and local culture shape the names of the provinces.