Darien, a city founded by Balboa in 1510, has given a name to the Gulf and Isthmus of Darien. Balboa's town, which he called Santa Maria del Darien, was built on the River Tarena, a native name of which Darien is a corruption. The Tarena, a small stream, has been commonly iden tified with the Atrato, which the earliest Spanish settlers called the Rio Grande, or Rio S. Juan. It was Vasco Nunez Balboa, and not, as Keats says, ' stout Cortez,' who in 1513, 'with eagle eyes,' stared at the Pacific, and all his men ' Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent upon a peak in Darien.' In 1695 the projector, William Paterson, founded his bubble Darien Company, and three years later sent 12,000 Scotch emigrants to perish in New Edinburgh and New St. Andrews, founded in the territory which they called New Caledonia.

From page 104 of:

Names and Their Histories: A Handbook of Historical Geography and Topographical Nomenclature (Google eBook)

Rivingtons, 1898