This is getting on the ball, but the vast majority of state names post-independence that weren't absorbed existing legal entities in some form (former colonies and/or provinces like Louisiana or New Mexico) were usually named after a physical feature that itself might be shared with an associated Amerindian tribe or at least a common Amerindian word for the area. Even the one major exception east of the Rocky Mountains - Indiana - at least clearly meant "Indian-Land" in Latin. Think about it: Michigan (lake), Tennessee (river), Ohio (river), Kentucky (common Iroquois name for the region), Alabama (river), Montana (mountains, derp), even Idaho was SUPPOSED to refer to mountains even if it was made up. Another subtle reason this came about was because America wanted to differentiate itself from Britain since it was (and still is in so many ways) pretty Anglo and place names were an obvious way to do that.
Yes, many times there were proposals to name a state after someone famous, but they never got through because of stronger civic and republican values of the time - also, I think a lot of people will forget many now-idolized figures still could have many detractors in their day as well that wouldn't just let their political opponent or bane be so honorably immortalized. Even Washington state was almost named "Takoma", after the mountain, before Congress finally gave in and gave ole' Big G a full state - because everyone at least agreed Washington of all Americans was pretty awesome. Heck, even then they had to get to the Pacific and were running out of state-sized areas to do this in as well. It was then or never.
Funny how that worked out, huh? At the time realizing "Columbia" was apparently a more common term for the American capital than "Washington" until the Washington City/D.C. merger became fully built up and synonymous with one another.
