The name Peru, applied to the Empire of the Incas by the Spanish, started to circulate worldwide after the year 1534, after Hernando Pizarro arrived in Seville and after the procession in front of the inhabitants and the Venetian and Genoese merchants of the fabulous treasures of golden jars and bars, which served as ransom for Inca Atahualpa.
Peru appears with the fabulous prestige of the fortunate islands of the medieval geography and its name, since then, had a legendary vibration.  

The name Peru, unknown to the Incas, was imposed by the Spanish conquistadors and rejected by the aboriginals, who refused to use it, according to the testimony of Valera, Acosta and Garcilazo.

Peru is not a quechuan name, nor from the Antilleans or Caribbean but comes from a chief of a Panamanian tribe called Birú, neighbour of the gulf of San Miguel, who was called “Peru” by the soldiers and adventurers.

On the 18th century don Cosme Bueno maintained that the river which gave its name to PERU was the river “Viru” situated south of Trujillo. The cartographic facts of the period of the conquest, the maps of Bartolomé Ruiz, Hernán Peñate and Diego Rivera do not record any river at all with the name of Biru or Peru.

There is no documented evidence that Vasco Nuñez de Balboa had any knowledge of that in Inca Empire recognized or used the word Peru. Balboa was executed in 1519 and the first notice from the chief Birú was received by Andagoya in 1522. The name Peru does not appear in any written document until 1527.

 

* Extract of a document of the geographic Institute of Peru.