Oranienbaum was granted town status in 1710, and was initially applied to theOranienbaum palace complex, built between 1710 and 1725 oppositeKronstadt, in the neighbourhood of the royal residencePeterhof Palace, by the architects Giovanni Mario Fontana and Gottfried Johann Schadel, and was intended forAlexander Menshikov, a close associate ofPeter the Great. The original name of the town translates to "orange tree" inGerman (in modern German, the word isOrangenbaum), and is believed to have been derived from the palace complex which hadgreenhouses to grow exotic plants such as orange trees. According to another version, the name means “Tree of Orange” in honour ofWilliam III of Orange, stadtholder of the Netherlands and king of England, who was the idol of Peter the Great, or it was borrowed from the toponymy of Germany (the city ofOranienbaum in thePrincipality of Anhalt named by Princess Henrietta Katharina Nassau-Oransky after her home place) simply as a “beautiful” name in the fashion spirit of the Petrine era.
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