[Algorithm comes] from the now-quite-distorted name of a person, Ja'far Mohammed Ben Musa, who was known as al-Khowarazmi, meaning "the man from Khwarazm."...The current form algorithm exhibits what the Oxford English Dictionary calls a "pseudo-eytymological perversion"; it got confused with the word arithmetic (which was one of its meanings, and which has several letters in common with it); the result was the current algorithm.
(http://www.nku.edu/~christensen/031MAT494euclid.doc) quoting Mathematics: An Etymological Dictionary of Mathematical Terms Used in English, Steve Schwartzman, The Mathematical Association of America, 1994.see also ALGORITHMIC ART: Composing the Score for Visual Art by Roman Verostko
Another variant of the name is al-Khwarizmi. See a fuller discussion of his antecedents
Wikipedia entry for al-K. ...and links to other entries, including Khwarezmia ...which brings us to the Aral Sea...
Wikipedia entry for 'algorithm' gives us a LOT to work with.