How did the Devonian Period get its name from Devon, England?

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Devonian paleogeography — Devonian Period Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during the early Devonian Period. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are the locations of the interval's subduction zones.

The Devonian Period is named after the county of Devon, England, where the marine rocks defining the period were first studied.1

In 1839, British geologists Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison proposed the designation after recognizing that fossil corals found in Torquay, Devon, were distinct from those in the underlying Silurian Period and the overlying Carboniferous Period. This identification was prompted by the work of William Lonsdale, who noted the intermediate nature of these fossils.12

Sedgwick and Murchison concluded that these marine deposits in Devon were the equivalent of the terrestrial Old Red Sandstone rocks found elsewhere in Britain. Their findings were formally presented to the Geological Society of London in their paper, "On the Physical Structure of Devonshire".12