 The word "Australia" means "Southern Land" in New Latin, adapted from the legendary pseudo-geographical "Terra Australis Incognita" ("Unknown Southern Land") dating back to the Roman era.First appearing as a corruption of the Spanish name for an island in Vanuatu in 1625, "Australia" was slowly popularized following the advocacy of the British explorer Matthew Flinders in his 1814 description of his circumnavigation of the island.Lachlan Macquarie, a Governor of New South Wales, used the word in his dispatches to England and recommended it be formally adopted by the Colonial Office in 1817.