The province was named after the yacht "Granma", used by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro to land in Cuba with 82 guerrillas in 1956. The American who sold them the secondhand yacht in Mexico apparently had named it after his grandmother and so the name of this vessel, with its non-standard spelling, became an icon for Cuban communism. Not every Cuban realizes that the name would translate as "abuela," although all can name the mothership of the revolution.