The British woman credited with coining the name Nigeria is the journalist Flora Shaw.

She suggested the name in an essay that appeared in The Times newspaper on January 8, 1897. She created the name by combining the words “Niger” and “Area,” referring to the country’s dominant geographical feature, the River Niger.

Flora Shaw later married Lord Frederick Lugard, who was a British colonial administrator and later became the first Governor-General of Nigeria when the Northern and Southern Protectorates were amalgamated in 1914.