It was mistakenly named Rhode Island:
http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/studteaguide/RhodeIslandHistory/chapt1.html
Verrazzano made his famous trip, searching for an all-water route through North America to China, in the employ of the French king Francis and several Italian promoters. After landfall at Cape Fear, North Carolina, about March 1, 1524, he proceeded up the coast to the present site of New York City to anchor in the Narrows, now spanned by the giant bridge which bears his name. From there, according to his own account, he sailed in an easterly direction until he "discovered an island in the form of a triangle, distant from the mainland ten leagues, about the bigness of the Island of Rhodes," which he named Luisa after the Queen Mother of France. This was Block Island, but Roger Williams and other early settlers mistakenly thought that Verrazzano had been referring to Aquidneck Island. Thus they changed that Indian name to Rhode Island, and Verrazzano inadvertently and indirectly gave the state its name.
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"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." - Socrates
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"De omnibus dubitandum"
