How did the Bering Sea get its name?

The Bering Sea and the Bering Strait are named after Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator who served in the Russian navy.12

In 1724, Tsar Peter I commissioned Bering to lead an expedition to determine if Asia and North America were connected by land. During his 1728 voyage, Bering sailed through the strait that now bears his name, confirming that the two continents were separated. Although the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnyov had navigated the region as early as 1648, the area was later named in honor of Bering’s significant contributions to the exploration and mapping of the northern Pacific and Arctic regions.132