How, apparently, did Greenland acquire its name?

Greenland, the world's largest island, is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Its name in the indigenous language is “Kalaallit Nunaat” ("land of the Kalaallit"). The Kalaallit are the indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people who inhabit the country's western region.

The early Norse settlers named the island as Greenland. In the Icelandic sagas, the Norwegian-born Icelander Erik the Red was to be exiled from Iceland for manslaughter. Along with his extended family and his thralls (his serfs), he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest of Iceland.

After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it “Grœnland” (translated as "Greenland"), apparently in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers. The "Saga of Erik the Red" states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favourable name."