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I am seeking the etyomology of the name of the peninsula, Kamchatka. The only explanation I have found is in the old book "A shooting trip to Kamchatka", which suggests that it comes from a term meaning "uneven or rough" (possibly камчатый, which Google translates as "crenate" or "scalloped").
Is the explanation substantiated? Is the name's origin Russian anyway? Who named it, and to describe which feature? Was the peninsula so named before the Kamchatka River?
There is a hypothesis that the toponym Kamchatka has its origin in the Ainu language. The original inhabitants of Southern Kamchatka, Sakhalin island, Kuril and Japanese islands were the Ainu people, most toponyms in the Southern Kamchatka, Kuril islands, and many toponyms on the Japanese islands are of Ainu origin.
In his book "Курильско-Камчатский диалект айнского языка" (The Kuril-Kamchatka Dialect of the Ainu Language), Александр Акулов (Alexander Akulov) writes:
Также само название Камчатка, похоже, является словом айнского происхождения, поскольку в нем в финальной позиции виден тот же компонент ka, что и в проанализированных выше топонимах; судя по всему слово Камчатка состоит из следующих элементов: kam «простираться» + cak «взрываться» + ka «место» таким образом, изначально топоним, вероятно, выглядел как Kamcakka и означал «простирающаяся [и] взрывающаяся местность».
In English:
Also, the name Kamchatka appears to be a word of Ainu origin, since in it the same component ka is found in the final position, as in the toponyms analyzed above. Apparently, the word Kamchatka consists of the following elements: kam "stretch" + cak "explode" + ka "place", so originally the toponym probably looked like Kamcakka and meant "stretching [and] exploding terrain."
"Exploding" refers to the fact that there are many volcanoes and geyser on the Kamchatka peninsula.
Nobody knows
Well, this whole peninsula was named so because there's a river called Камчатка, but according to wikipedia (and other sources actually) there are literally dozens of version from where this name came.
Here are some facts though:
Kamchatka we have is a dutch map, dated back to 1687 and based on some Russian sources. камчадал (kamchadal) came to usage not earlier that at at the very end of XVIIth century.землепроходец (sort of pioneer) Иван Камчатый (Ivan Kamchatyj) and from his name Камчатка was derived. The funny part is that actually nobody knows as well whether he reached the peninsula at all - though he traveled a lot through Siberia and Far East.Whatever of the of versions is correct it most probably has nothing to do with Russian language though.
With the exception of (highly doubtful) Иван Камчатый version - камчатый is an adjective, it's about something made of special fabric called камка, which is a Russian word of turkic origin.
It might be Turkic, given "kamşag" (kamshag) means "quake" in Old Turkic and Kamchatka region is often hit by earthquakes. The word and its verb form "kamşat-" (kamshat) appear several times in Orkhon Inscriptions.
The Orkhon Inscriptions were erected in honor of the two Turkic princes Kül Tegin and his brother Bilge Kagan and written by Yollug Tegin who was nephew of Bilge Kagan. The Inscriptions are two monoliths that contain long Old Turkic lines in Runic characters on three sides, and on one side (the western) the inscription is in Chinese. They are mostly about the social and political life of the Ancient Turks and their relations with the neighboring people mostly Ancient Chinese. They were deciphered by Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.
As for the words, “Kamşag” which means “quake” or “shakiness” appears on the north side of Kul Tegin Inscription:
“Ėçim kagan ėli kamşag boltokınta bodun ėlig ėkegü boltokınta izgil bodun birle süŋüşdümiz”
I’m giving Talat Tekin’s English translation of the line from “A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic”, available online from here. (p.270)
“When the empire of my uncle, the kagan, became shaky and when the people and ruler were split into two parts, we fought against the İzgil people.”
And the verb form of the word appears on the east side of Bilge Kagan.
"Türk bodun adak kamşattı" meaning "The Turkish people tottered."
Given the nomadic nature of the Ancient Turks and their history in Siberia, I think the words might be related.
Another origin story traces the name back to an indigenous man. Georg Wilhelm Steller's 1740s-era History of Kamchatka says:
The name Kamchatka was given to this land when the Russian Cossacks conquered it, because they learned from the heathen people through sign language that their name for the Kamchatka River, which is the largest in the entire land, was Konshatka, and for that reason the Cossacks called all of the land's inhabitants Kamchadali, as was their custom.
The name Konshat is the name of a much admired, very famous man from the past, who lived on this river.
