Ville-Marie
The original name for the settlement that would later become Montreal was Ville-Marie. When the missionary society, the Société Notre-Dame pour la conversion des Sauvages, sent Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve to found a city on the island of Montréal in 1642 they named the settlement Ville-Marie, in honour of the Virgin, protectress of the venture. Nonetheless, from the very beginning both the settlement of Ville-Marie and the mountain were known as Montréal to many people, including to some of the map-makers of the period. In the 18th century, for no official reason, the name Montréal supplanted that of Ville-Marie. Up until then, the city was called, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes separately, Montréal and/or Ville-Marie.
Read more about this topic: Name Of Montreal