Greenland was named by a man who wanted people to move to an island of ice

Banished from Iceland around 982 AD, the Norse explorer Erik the Red spent three years exploring the coasts of an unnamed island to its west. According to the Icelandic sagas, he called it 'Greenland,' reasoning that a pleasant name would draw settlers more effectively than an honest one. It worked: dozens of ships of colonists followed him back, even though the island's interior is almost entirely buried under a kilometres-thick ice sheet.

— Unknown Icelandic author (13th century), Erik the Red's Saga — Saga of Erik the Red / Landnámabók