A brief history of the Commonwealth of Virginia:
The first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States was at Jamestown, Virginia. The colony was named for Queen Elizabeth who was often called the "Virgin Queen." Anyway, around 1663, King Charles II decided that he liked the people in Virginia more than any of the other people in the colonies and decided to honor them by declaring the Virginia territory a "dominion" and/or a piece of land or territory over which he had complete ownership. This because the colonists in Virginia declared themselves the very most loyal.
Later, more places were also made dominions, but Virginia was the first, and that is why it was (and is) called the "old dominion."
Fascinating!
(I got all this information from here.)
