The derivation of Oz, the fantasy land ruled by a Wonderful Wizard from Emerald City created by New York journalist Lyman Frank Baum (1856–1919), has been variously explained by biographers:
Baum modified the name from the kingdom of Uz, Job’s homeland.
Baum, delighted in the exhalations of “Oohs” and “Ahs” from his children, respelled them.
Baum was inspired by the pen name, “Boz,” of his hero Charles Dickens.
Baum, in an interview with the St. Louis Despatch, said that the name was derived from the drawer of a three-tier filing cabinet labeled “O-Z.”
Baum’s work is an allegorical treatment of the fin de siècle conflict between the gold standard and bimetallism. Oz comes from the abbreviation of ounce, in which both gold and silver are traded; the Yellow Brick Road is said to symbolize the gold standard, the witch’s silver shoes to represent silver coinage, and the Cowardly Lion is purportedly William Jennings Bryan, unsuccessful candidate in the 1896 presidential election, whose Cross of Gold speech is the dispute’s most famous cultural artifact.