Starboard and Port

Where do these terms come from???

And the French is "Tribord' for starboard and 'Babord' for Port

From the Dutch "stuurboord" and "backboord" - stuur = to steer and bak = back. The tiller, before becoming a helm, was located on the right-hand side of the boat as the helmsperson was often right-handed, and could steer the boat by facing forward with his (mostly his...) right hand. 

For English speakers: this means that in the harbor, the vessel could tie up on the other side of that steering board, the rudder that was external to the boat (easier to build without a throughhull initially), so that the board wouldn't get in the way, or risk being broken. Hence the 'port' side of the boat...

For French speaker, in heavy weather, the helmsperson would have to use both arms...especially for big commercial vessels and therefore turn his back to the other board which inherited the term 'BakBoord', 'BackBoard' => 'babord'.

The Dutch were pretty heavy traders and active sea merchants from every early on.

Source: wikipedia and various other marine website...