This is the book I have:
"History of Orange County, California", by Samuel Armor, 705 p, published in 1911 (and revised in 1921) by Historic Record Co. This is a classic and has great biographies of early Orange County residents.
This is the closest to what I remember, I have found on the web:
"With the growth of the communities in the southeastern part of Los Angeles County, there sprang up the desire for a smaller county with a county seat nearer home. This feeling grew until finally an appeal was made to the legislature of 1889 for autonomy. The city of Santa Ana, which had outgrown the other cities in the proposed new county, took the land in the struggle for county division. A lobby was maintained in Sacramento all winter at considerable expense, without being able to overcome the influence of Los Angeles against the bill for the new county. This bill was entitled "An Act to Create the County of Orange," the name Orange being selected partly on its own merits and partly to conciliate the city of the name, which also aspired to be county seat."
http://www.ocgov.com/ochistory/ochistoryformation.asp